


We Burned Bright

by marauders_groupie



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: (not kinky tho sorry), Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Bellamy in a CROP TOP, Cars & racing, Childhood Friends, Dancing, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Florist + Tattoo Artist AU, Florist!Bellamy, Flower Crowns, Found Families, Friends With Benefits, Girl Power, Grease AU, Halsey - Closer AU, Kid Fic, Prompts & drabbles, Skype, Tattoo Artist!Clarke, blind!Bellamy, single parent!Bellamy, soldier!bellamy, sugar mommy!clarke, wynonna earp au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-17 10:29:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 39
Words: 62,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5865949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marauders_groupie/pseuds/marauders_groupie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles, prompt fills, and various one shots. </p><p>*</p><p><b>#39:</b> Bellamy reading on the subway.</p><p>
  <i>It's really funny how words have a flavor if you keep them in your mouth long enough.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Post season 3 - finally getting that drink

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, since I'm inspired to write drabbles every day but shy away from it because I don't want to write unless I'm making it into a real, long fic, here's this. Now you'll never get me to shut up and/or stop writing. Sorry not sorry.
> 
> This was inspired by Wanheda Pt.II and I've seen that everyone is a mess so I'm not even gonna apologize. They need to be happy. Here's something. 
> 
> Also, it's probably a bad idea to listen to The Civil Wars - Between The Bars while reading this but do it anyways.
> 
> Enjoy!

Bellamy slams a tin cup on the table in front of Clarke and she does her best not to startle, but she does. The liquid pours over the edge, the recognizable paint thinner smell of moonshine someone else makes now that Monty can’t remember anything but the Mountain, much less the recipe, and Clarke watches it trickle away to the floor.

“You owe me a drink.”

His voice is like gravel, pebbles digging right into her skin as she stares at the cup and doesn’t look up at the man who has come to find her, who helped her come back to her people, who has done so much she can’t even keep track of it anymore.

He’s done everything.

She’s done nothing but cause pain and suffering, and how could she even look him in the eye anymore?

That’s why she doesn’t. Her gaze stays fixed on the cup she doesn’t want to wrap her fingers around, and his burns a hole in the side of her head until he carefully, quietly, takes a seat across from her.

There’s something to be said about people who’ve gone through hell, scraped their knees on their way out, and still fought to find kindness in their heart.

Clarke doesn’t have one to begin with, not anymore.

“How are you?” he asks, considerate. The muscles in his arms ripple when he places them on the table, careful not to startle her, careful not to impose her space. When did he get so damn considerate?

When did he don grounder gear to find her, find her, touch her – and in that one touch he grounded her, her anchor, her tether, the heart to her brain, which never stopped spinning wildly until Bellamy was there and then it was finally quiet – when was he torn away from her, stabbed, left for dead?

It feels like eons ago, a different life entirely. But she still has scars to prove it, still hates the sheets that reach up to her mouth and still wakes up when that happens because she feels gagged and bound again.

“I’m home.”

She can imagine the quirk of his mouth that she doesn’t dare to look at, the corners just slightly upturned and a leveling gaze that’s not impressed with her. Just Bellamy.

(Just the whole universe, really. So fuck it.)

“That’s not an answer, Clarke.”

For months, they’d addressed her as Wanheda. And then he came to find her, reminded her that she is Clarke Griffin, a girl who used to hide charcoal in her pockets and snort at bad jokes, not just a monster who killed too many people to count.

(Her back is not big enough for all the kill marks.)

(Her whole _body_ wouldn’t be big enough.)

“I’m learning how to live here again,” she offers, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. When Bellamy scoffs, she knows he’s not convinced and downs the drink in one swift move, finally finding enough courage to look at him.

The thing is, Clarke looks at him and she sees what could have been her. She sees someone who decided to stay with their people, someone who fought to be good in a world that wanted to make them evil, someone who didn’t care that she abandoned them – someone who still wanted to keep her safe.

And his eyes have never been softer before than when his gaze falls on her, the downward curve of his mouth, so – “One more!”

Gina is there in a second, a knowing smile playing on her mouth, a slightly more intolerant one directed at Bellamy. There is something there but Clarke doesn’t know, it feels like she should know but she’s missed so much it feels impossible to catch up.

“I’m happy to be home,” she presses out when Gina moves away, throwing another pointed look over her shoulder at Bellamy. Seeing him, yeah, she is. Clarke is happy to be home. Her home are her people, not this settlement. Her home is Bellamy, Octavia, Monty, Jasper, Miller, Raven.

But – Bellamy is her constant. Even when the whole world is collapsing into ashes and dust, even when the world is a storm running rampant, he is the shelter.

She doesn’t know she’s even speaking but the words come out of her mouth all the same and she can’t fight off the smile. “God, I missed you.”

And Bellamy – that noble boy, that Rebel King who just wanted to cut off her hand to get to her bracelet, whose smirk was so fucking infuriating those first few weeks –

Bellamy has this incredulous look in his eyes that makes Clarke want to laugh out loud, ask him if he really thinks that she wouldn’t walk to the ends of Earth for him, too. How can he think that he’s the only one who’d touch the other’s skin like it’s a fragile, precious thing, the only one who’d look at the other like they’re water in a forest fire?

How can he think, even just for one moment, that she doesn’t love him?

She loves him like you love the one good thing you get in a shitty life, that one big, good thing you think you’ll spend the rest of your days working to deserve. She loves him like warriors love winning the battles. She loves him like this Earth loves scratching at their skin and making them work for every breath they take.

She loves him because there’s nothing else.

There is nothing else.

“Yeah,” he snaps out of it, finally, as she feels her cheeks burning from how wide she’s smiling. It’s impossible, by all accounts. She doesn’t get to smile after all the shit she’s done, but. What the hell _isn’t_ possible with Bellamy? “I missed you, too, Clarke.”

“But it doesn’t change anything, right?” she retorts, trying to fend off the bitterness seeping into her voice. “I still did all that. The Mountain is on me. The ring of fire is on me. The – “

“It’s on _us_.”

The muscle in his jaw ticks and Clarke can’t do anything but roll her eyes, from happiness she allows herself to feel just to feed off of it – knowing that it’s not hers, to misery in a split second.

No, misery is hers.

Happiness and Bellamy are not.

But he still tries to take half the blame, like she’s not the one who shot Dante Wallace, like she’s not the one who asked Monty if he can irradiate level five.

“I need to – “

“You need to drink,” he cuts her off, tilting his head towards the half-full cup on the table in front of her.

“Wise as ever.”

“Wouldn’t want to disappoint you.”

She downs the remaining liquid, revels in the way it burns down her throat. No one else understands Jasper, but Clarke does. They’ve both got an appetite for self-destruction, like it’s the only thing that can change the past. And if it can’t do that – then at least it can erase them from the future.

When she’s relaxed, the muscles going limper, heartbeat slowing down in her chest, eyes drooping with fatigue – not the need to escape, Bellamy begins.

“You did good, Clarke. Maybe you’re blinded by everything that’s happened, everything bad you – _we_ – have done, but it still doesn’t erase the fact that this,” he motions towards the camp, children kicking a makeshift ball, a couple flirting by the bar, Raven heckling Miller, “this is your doing. These people that are safe here, who will never know what it was like to have to pull the levers, people who will do better now that you have made life better for them – _that’s_ on you. So screw the Mountain, screw the dropship, screw that.”

Bellamy flashes her a rueful smile before continuing, nerve endings in Clarke’s body setting themselves on fire as he speaks and finally – finally, she sees it.

“You want to talk about what you’ve done? Talk about all the good. You’ve done a lot of bad, too, and so have I. Three hundred on the Ark, three hundred in the Mountain. But how many alive on Earth?” And after a beat, “I’m not saying this just so you’d feel better. I’m saying this because it’s true.”

His words have always managed to feel like a blade cutting across her skin, like the safety of home, like destruction and like creation.

And because he’s wise beyond his years, because he’s Bellamy and he’s not a part of her but a whole that she wants by her side, because she’s desperate and too young to count the kill marks in stabs of fingernails into her palm, she asks, “What the fuck do I do now?”

“You let yourself come home,” he replies, simple as that. And maybe it is.

Maybe she’s been wrong all along.

“Okay. Tomorrow?”

Bellamy flashes her a peaceful smile, dimples barely forming in his cheeks. “Sure.”

“Good. I’m going to go to sleep now.”

There’s a split second in which his face falls and Clarke rushes to add, “Do you want to come with me? To sleep. I’m not going to try anything, I just can’t be alone.” _I just can’t be without you._

He’s confused but he nods, stands up with the scrape of his chair. When she leans into his side, people moving away for them to pass, finally he understands and drapes an arm over her shoulders. It’s hunger for affection, for feeling like a human, and Clarke doesn’t move away, just snuggles in closer.

Fuck Wanheda, she’s just an eighteen year-old girl who has done too much, too little, and Bellamy is the closest to heaven she’ll ever get.

“Are you cold?” he asks, confusion painting his tone different than what he sounded minutes ago and Clarke shakes her head into the crook of his arm. “ _Oh_. Okay.”

Okay, when he closes the door behind him as Clarke gets to undressing. She’s had a shower, they have those in Arkadia now. She’s washed her hair of traces of red coloring she used to mask herself, to hide herself away from the world. She’s done all she can do to cleanse her hands of blood but they’re still stained when she looks at them.

So she looks at Bellamy instead.

She looks at him idling in the doorway, averting his gaze like he wants to give her privacy but really, it’s so, so pointless.

“You’ve seen me kill people, Bellamy,” she tells him, as soft as she possibly can. “I think you’re free to look now.”

Bellamy makes a face at her but complies, staring at her face pointedly as she gets rid of her shirt, her pants, her underwear at last. There is a ratty t-shirt she knows is his, blue with holes on the shoulders, and she slips into it, raising a challenging eyebrow.

He’s done for when he notices, a laugh spilling over his lips as he crosses the distance between them, wraps his hands around her waist and pulls her in for a hug that feels like it couldn’t just break her ribs but her heart, too.

“God, you’ll be the death of me, Clarke,” he tells her, the laugh reverberating in his chest and vibrating against her skin as she takes the smell of him in. The smell of home.

“You _do_ have a certain proclivity for risking your life so you could save me, Bellamy. It’s not a good habit to have.”

The laughter dies down and he moves away just enough to look her in the eye, dead serious as he speaks, “It is if it means keeping you safe.”

“So keep me safe in the bed and hope you don’t need to on the battlefield. I think we’ve just about had enough wars.”

The only war they’ll get to fight now is rebuilding. Not only Arkadia, but themselves, and Clarke knows it when they pull the covers over, curl into each other, limbs tangled and foreheads pressing together.

“Took us long enough,” she whispers, close enough to count every freckle smattered across the bridge of his nose, his cheeks, trickling into his dimples. There are constellations found in his freckles, but there is a whole universe in his eyes and Clarke can’t look away.

“Just long enough.”

They hold each other close and it’s quiet. It’s not a battle cry like Clarke would think the moment they accepted that they love each other would be. It’s not war drums. It’s not an old Earth symphony.

It’s just quiet.

And it’s exactly what they need.

 


	2. The Ice Nation gives Bellamy Wanheda as peace offering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I got an anon prompt: "A fic where Clarke is given to Bellamy by the Grounders as a peace offering and neither of them know what to do because obviously they don't agree with giving people as gifts but they can't offend the gift givers until they leave". 
> 
>  
> 
> _"They say that the gods don’t love the way humans do and Bellamy Blake is alright with that. He has never wanted to be a god, not even when the smell of death clung to his skin like a shadow he couldn’t part from – that power was never wanted. Gods are cursed and maybe humans are, too, but when he sees Clarke in Azgeda court, he forgets everything about curses and wars and blood."_
> 
>  
> 
> Written after 3x02.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like it, dear friend, even though it mostly turned into channeling leftover feels from episode 2. 
> 
> Enjoy!

They say that the gods don’t love the way humans do and Bellamy Blake is alright with that. He has never wanted to be a god, not even when the smell of death clung to his skin like a shadow he couldn’t part from – that power was never wanted. Gods are cursed and maybe humans are, too, but when he sees Clarke in Azgeda’s court, he forgets everything about curses and wars and blood.

All there is left are her eyes widening slightly, something akin to relief in them, and he sees the way her shoulders slump, tired of carrying the weight of the world on her own.

 _I’m sorry, I should have been there_ , he wants to say, but their story is full of those beautiful _almost_ s that make the words catch in his throat every damn time.

Instead, what comes out is her name, breathed out because something behind his lungs, something he’d call a heart if he had one to begin with, thrashes against his ribcage and now there is just a storm calming down in her blue eyes and liquid gold flowing in her hair just for them.

“Bellamy,” she replies, her hands twitching like she wants to say hello, but she is held down by two ripped Ice Nation warriors. Bellamy sees the exact moment she realizes that she can’t rush over to him so he does.

She is warm and soft and protests when his arms nearly crack her ribs, wrapped around her sides too tightly, but he swears he hears a chuckle after her lips brush past his cheek.

And then, her hot breath on his ear, a whisper. “The queen thinks we’re lovers. Play along.”

Bellamy wants to ask how the fuck does that matter, she’s here now, she’s here and he could cry from the sheer relief, but when queen of the Ice Nation speaks, it dawns on him.

“Bellamy kom Skaikru. Please accept Wanheda as our peace offering. We wish peace to your people, despite our – unfortunate start.” The queen is tall, her skin fair and when she moves, the furs she is covered in move like a mass of wretched bodies in the Styx. She is ice and somehow, she still looks like she could burn them all. “We hope we can achieve it now.”

Wanheda. He wants to say that is not the Commander of Death they all want her to be. She is Clarke Griffin and she has done more good than bad so fuck their Wanheda bullshit.

The queen shoots them a pointed look and only then does Bellamy become aware of the way Clarke has tangled herself up in him, pressing to his side, her hand on the small of his back, her forehead burning next to his neck, a polite smile in the ruler’s direction that doesn’t quite reach up to her eyes.

But still –

“She is not-“ he starts, only to be silenced by Clarke pinching his elbow. She shakes her head ever so slightly but he catches up, ‘ _a gift_ ’ replaced by something that might get them out of this place alive. “She is not just Wanheda, she is _everything_ to me.”

It’s the first time he’s said anything like this but Clarke doesn’t flinch. The worst thing is – he’s not lying. There are things he allows himself to think about only in the middle of the night, when nothing seems worse than the nightmares, and every single one of them is usually about Clarke. About all the _I love you_ s he hopes she heard in ‘I’ll bring guns’, ‘It had to be done’ and ‘Together’. He never said them.

He never said them, never said enough of those to the girl who made him feel true, even if it meant realizing that he is a monster, and then finally – realizing that he could be and would be better. He never told her a single word about how he’d go to the ends of Earth to find her, how his heart ripped itself wide open in his chest when he’d seen her for the first time, and not even the stab wound in his thigh could hurt more than having her ripped away. Months of not knowing whether she was dead or alive, months of fighting just not to lose hope, just to find her.

Months of it and now that he’s finally said it – it doesn’t help. It still weighs on his heart and it still means nothing, not in this court, with this queen he should hate but can’t find it in himself to do it.

“We have not been wrong, then,” the queen says, tilting her head at them. Clarke is pressed so close to him but they haven’t melted into each other, no. There is something between that pains him. But she is safe and it’s enough. “Rest now, Sky People. We discuss the terms in the morning.”

 

The silence between them as they are escorted to their rooms is thick and painful. Clarke steals a glance at him every now and then, the corner of her mouth curving upwards in a not-quite-there smile, but there are people around.

When the door to their room (“Lovers, remember?”) is closed as the guards leave, Bellamy knows that he might have spent most of his life believing that he was fireproof, nothing that could touch him anymore, but he was wrong.

He knows it because the moment Clarke says his name, as if it were for the first time – so earnestly and with enough longing to break his heart, Bellamy knows he’d let the flames lick at his fingertips and sear his skin. It is worth it.

“Bellamy,” she repeats again, not moving from the doorway, as if she is afraid of him and he can’t say anything, never has been able to when her honesty surprised him, only opens his arms wide and nods.

There is a split second in which she looks honest to God surprised and Bellamy wants to laugh because – how can she not see it? How can she not see that he’d do anything for her because she was everything to him, because she is not a princess – no. The two of them wear matching scars making them monsters but he sees the blood on her hands, sees the same shade on his own, and all he wants to do is wrap them around her.

She melts into him, her hands pressed to his back and her face buried in the crook of his neck, so impossibly close now, now that she’s let down her guard and he wants to laugh because it is so typical of Clarke but he loves her.

God, he loves her enough to let all the kingdoms burn to ashes, light the first match, even, if that meant she would be happy, if that meant they’d get a peaceful ending. 

No, Bellamy Blake is not fireproof but that’s alright with him, too. He’ll embrace the flames if they found a home in Clarke Griffin.

“Oh, Bellamy, I thought you were – I didn’t know, I – “ she whispers, her face still buried in his skin, hot tears sliding down his shirt and he holds her closer, the only thing he can imagine doing. Hold her closer, never let her go, send it all to hell and just leave to wherever the hell she wants to. “I’m so, so _sorry_.”

“Hey,” he whispers back, careful not to startle her. Bellamy knows that they all think she is the Commander of Death and maybe that is true, in a way, but she is still human. There is a new scar on her shoulder when her fur coat slips off and he bites his lip so hard he tastes blood.

Clarke looks like herself when she moves away. A little defiant, a little broken, but hopeful. Hope is something he has learned to cherish, keep it under lock and key because it was so rare in Bellamy’s world on the Ark. Now that he knows the taste of it, he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget.

And Clarke hopes, which is enough to make him press his lips to her forehead, tuck a stray curl behind her ear, his fingers lingering on her skin for as long as she’ll let him – she is real, she is real and she is here.

“I am sorry, Bellamy,” she continues, squaring her shoulders as if she’s marching into a battle, wiping her tears away impatiently and with enough strength to hurt herself. “I am sorry for sending you into the Mountain, I am sorry for making you go through all those things, I am sorry for hurting our people and the people in Mount Weather, I am sorry for Roan stabbing you because you came to find _me_ , I – “

It breaks his heart, the raw look on her face, her strained voice, keeping tears at bay, and Bellamy stops her before she can hurt herself anymore. He knows the monologue, he’s practiced it so many times until the guilt poisoned his heart and he doesn’t want the same to happen to her.

“Hey, Clarke, it’s alright. It’s alright, you did what you had to do. Please don’t apologize.” He cradles her head, shivers when he sees the storm in her eyes brewing like it once used to – before it turned into fire into ice into nothing at all (“ _I was weak_.”). “You did what you had to do to keep our people safe. I would’ve done the same and I went into the Mountain because that was the right thing to do. And I came to find you because – “

Because he was selfish enough to believe that he could do it, save her on his own. Just a self-satisfied kid who got himself a sword and wanted to help the princess to kill the dragon. Because he was selfish and it hurt too much to be apart from her.

She waits, tear tracks glistening on her cheeks, and the rest of the world falls away for one precious moment in which she is alive and as well as she can be. None of them will ever be really well, but they’re still kicking and fighting and that’s gotta count for something.

“We could have saved you.” Her eyes widen at that but she waits. Has it always been like this? Impatient for everyone else, patient for each other? “More of our people were there but they wanted to wait for the Ice Nation’s army to pass. I didn’t. If I had just waited for an hour – “

And that’s where his thoughts in the middle of the night always end up. If he had only waited, if he had been less of an idiot, more of a strategist – maybe the grounder wouldn’t have taken her away, maybe –

“Why?” she asks with that calm in her voice that can only come after you know the storm has passed, or you have at least closed your shutters and it can’t hurt you now. “Why didn’t you wait?”

Bellamy sighs, tired of fighting the only fight that he doesn’t have to. “Because I missed you.”

It feels pointless to lie. Why would he? None of them are expecting anything out of this life anymore, out of people anymore, but they expect honesty from each other.

Clarke’s hand darts to his cheek, the first time she’s touched him first, and it burns his skin but he leans into it, wraps her hand around his, squeezes like he can make his heart beat if he tries enough.

“I thought I’d never see you again, Bellamy.” Her gaze is soft and it must burn like hell, to become soft after making your heart harden. “I thought they’d just kill me and be done with it, and you know what the worst thing was? You’d never know.”

Their eyes widen in accord, Bellamy’s out of shock – his heart is soaring and plummeting and it makes no sense but nothing ever has, and Clarke’s out of humor, like this is really something you could laugh about.

Maybe it is. Maybe everyone’s had it wrong all this time. Love, to Bellamy, always meant coming home at the end of the day, knowing that someone loved you there, someone whose presence you carried everywhere you went and no matter how far you left, you’d always know the path back home.

“You’d never know,” she smiles at him again, so wide her cheeks must hurt and he loves her, tangles his hand in her hair, waits because he’s been waiting for so long and he knows he’d wait forever, “that I am so glad you share this burden with me. That it’s you, no one else. You’d never know that I love you.”

Bellamy is not fireproof, he knows now. No. He is gasoline, she is the match, and when he kisses her they ignite a glorious pyre, one finally burning bright enough to set the whole world ablaze but he doesn’t care. Clarke Griffin is kissing him back, fury and passion and longing, her hands pulling him closer until they melt into each other, lips sliding together and moans turning into harmony.

They pull apart after what seems like years, fervent touches and feverish lips, and they stand in silence for a while, foreheads pressed together. Her eyes are closed and her voice hoarse when she speaks, but she is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

“Maybe we _are_ monsters, Bellamy. Maybe that is who we are.” She smiles and the whole world implodes inside his chest. “But I am tired of being afraid and if you’re still offering forgiveness, I’ll take it. I’m here now and I’m never leaving.”

Bellamy nods. “You have always been forgiven, Clarke.”

“So have you.”

He runs a thumb across her lips, raw and red like cherries, slides his hand down her jaw, pulls her in again. She smells like battlefields and running, endless running. He is no better. But maybe together they can be.

“And I love you, too.”

There might come a day when he’ll get tired of her lips finding his with ease, but that day isn’t today. No, today he lets her drag him to bed, silence the hell inside his lungs and she lets him pour love on the cracked parts of her soul because they might be monsters but he is hers and she is his.

 

They say that the gods don’t love the way humans do and Bellamy Blake is alright with that. He and Clarke love raw, pained, because their souls are threadbare and their hearts bear the kill marks that couldn’t possibly fit on their backs.

But they still love. They still fight.

And it is enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and I hope you liked it! :)
> 
> Kudos and comments are awesome, and even one line makes a huge difference, so be kind because episode 3 wrecked us enough, hasn't it?


	3. Shut up and Dance with Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Walk the Moon - Shut up and Dance, something happy with childhood best friends dancing because we need comfort after ep3.
> 
> "So, aware that he knows exactly what her awkward teen phase looked like, Bellamy has no fucking clue how he came to stand in the middle of Wells Jaha’s living room, just staring at Clarke Griffin in her backless dress and a pair of black beat up Converse, jumping up and down to the music with a smile on her face that could probably light up their entire town.
> 
> More importantly, he doesn’t know why his heart flips every time she looks over at him and smiles wider, why there is suddenly a swarm of butterflies in his stomach and why he really, badly, ridiculously wants to get his hands out of his jeans’ pockets and join her on the dance floor."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We all know what went down in ep3, I'm not even going to pretend like the whole episode didn't wreck me. I know I'm not the only one. The only therapy was listening to Shut up and Dance on repeat (I'm not proud to admit that I've listened to that song at least 74 times yesterday) so I got inspired. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Bellamy Blake has known Clarke Griffin ever since she was ten and annoying with her pro-Slytherin propaganda. He’d handed her Advil the first time she got drunk with Octavia and threw up in his mom’s run-down bathroom. He knows that she likes pink because she fought him when he told her that pink was for girls and she shot back, “I am a girl and I will kick your ass, Bellamy Blake” and it was clear that she definitely would.

So, aware that he knows exactly what her awkward teen phase looked like, Bellamy has no fucking clue how he came to stand in the middle of Wells Jaha’s living room, just staring at Clarke Griffin in her backless dress and a pair of black beat up Converse, jumping up and down to the music with a smile on her face that could probably light up their entire town.

More importantly, he doesn’t know why his heart flips every time she looks over at him and smiles wider, why there is suddenly a swarm of butterflies in his stomach and why he really, badly, ridiculously wants to get his hands out of his jeans’ pockets and join her on the dance floor.

But Bellamy Blake doesn’t dance and it doesn’t matter that this song is calling him to exactly that and Clarke is waving over at him, mouthing “ _Come on_ ”.

He does not dance.

But she does. She dances wildly, recklessly, like she doesn’t even give a single fuck what people think about her – it’s not glamorous or elegant but she is having fun. Clarke Griffin is having fun and she radiates like the surface of the sun in Jaha’s dimmed living room.

And he’s been craving some light.

So when she pecks Raven’s cheek, leaving the other girl to dance with flustered Wells, and makes her way over to him, Bellamy fists his hands in his pockets and tries to remember just how exactly that famous smirk of his goes because he’s spent a couple of years perfecting it but it always fails with Clarke these days.

“Great party, huh?” she asks, breathless, leaning one shoulder on the wall next to him. Her dress shines in the makeshift disco lights Raven made out of spare lamp parts and she’s still smiling.

“Yeah, Jaha really went all out.”

Clarke frowns at him and shakes her head, motioning towards her ear. “Can’t hear you.”

So he leans closer, a fatal mistake he’ll never forgive himself for making, because she smells like too many martinis and apple shampoo and – Clarke. That scent of Clarke when she’s gotten her knees scraped on the playground or showed up a bully or got a straight A. That scent of Clarke victorious for a really good reason.

“Jaha really – “he stops and she leans in closer, pressing her cheek to his lips, burning up while he’s practically freezing in his flannel. “Yeah, great party.”

It’s not until she interlocks their fingers and flashes him a smug smile that he realizes why she’s moving away, but then she’s pulling him into the crowd of gyrating hips and flailing arms and shakes her head when he tries to protest.

“I don’t dance!”

“Can’t hear you!”

“I don’t dance!” he repeats, louder, but she’s smiling like she wants the whole world and she wants him, too, and he’s hopeless when she grabs his arms and makes him move to the beat. The singer is begging him to shut up and dance with her so Bellamy does, channeling his inner Clarke that never gave a shit about what everyone else thought.

“This is so ridiculous!”

Clarke rolls her eyes, amused, and points at the speakers above them. “Shut _up_ and dance with me!”

His friends always tease him about being an old man who doesn’t do anything fun, but he can do fun. Clarke is laughing at him when he tries a sexy wiggle but swats his shoulder after he wants to leave, something in her blue eyes telling him that it’ll be fine, he just has to move.

Hours pass and he’s not sure how he’s still standing up, his flannel having been tied around his waist long ago, but now he’s jumping up and down with Clarke, there’s Octavia, too, and Miller is making out with Monty.

Something explodes in his chest and it makes him laugh out loud even though the music drowns out the sound but Clarke notices, smiles back, makes him move faster even though it’s the world’s slowest pop song.

“We’re horrible at this!” he shouts in her ear and she rolls her eyes, grabs his hand and twirls around in a circle, stopping only when she wants him to do the same.

“Good thing we don’t give a shit, then!”

 _Good thing we don’t give a shit_ , Bellamy thinks and smiles back at her, deciding to tell the butterflies to just fly on if that’s what they wanna do because her skin is slick underneath his fingertips when he brushes them across her bare back and her hair’s gone all frizzy like it was before she learned straightening iron exists, and maybe –

Well, fuck, maybe she still wears those Spiderman boxers he borrowed her when she threw up on her clothes when she was fifteen and he was seventeen.

Now they’re older but he’s still a goner.

“Drinks!” she yells, pointing her finger at the table and Bellamy nods, lets her take his hand as she leads him through the crowd. Every once in a while, she’ll throw a look over her shoulder, smile like she’s surprised he’s still there and he doesn’t know how to smirk because he’s just so happy.

They get really shitty beer and she mentions that on their way to the porch, the door drowning out the noise until it’s just a faint hum, vibrating underneath their bare toes when they plop down on the grass in the front garden. It’s a white picket fence dream and Bellamy really doesn’t care about how he’s supposed to be cooler than this when she lets out a happy-tired sigh and leans her head on his shoulder.

“I’m glad you danced,” she tells him, tilting her head just a little bit so she can see him better. Her eyes are clear even though she’s been drinking and then his gaze falls on her beat up chucks, the ones she loves putting up on his dashboard just so she can smirk when he rolls his eyes fondly. “I know you don’t do that but, Bell, that’s so stupid. You’ve _gotta_ dance. Who cares if you can’t?”

“Well, when you put it like that – “

She smiles at him, the corners of her eyes crinkling with it, and he’s reminded how she did that every time she kicked his ass at FIFA when they were in middle school.

“You still got those boxers I gave you?” he asks.

Clarke pauses for a second and then laughs. “Yeah, of course. The Spiderman ones? Sure, they’re my favorite.”

The condensation on the beer bottle slides down her wrists when she takes a sip and Bellamy swallows, hard.

“Hey, so listen, Clarke – “

She stops him with a press of her finger to his lips, leaving him just staring at her widened eyes and shaking head. The stars are reflected in her eyes when she looks up for a second, as if asking herself – _what the hell am I going to do with you?_

“Hey, so listen, Bellamy – before your mind gets in the way. I like you. Don’t know why the hell, though. You’re practically an old man yelling at the kids to get off his lawn, but.” There she stops, looks at him under her eyelashes, bites into her lower lip. He knows she does this when she is nervous. He knows a lot about her. But there are still things that surprise him, make his heart flip in his chest. Clarke Griffin liking him is one of them.

“Clarke Griffin is in love with me,” he says, unable to stop the self-satisfied tone that creeps into his voice and she swats at his arm.

“You’re such an asshole, Bellamy.” There’s no heat to it, never is, they’re just Bellamy and Clarke. Shooting the shit, showing love through insults, fighting each other on every possible thing.

“Hey,” he whispers, draping an arm over her shoulders when she moves away to take another sip of her beer. “All I’m saying – that’s good, that you’re in love with me. Because I’m in love with you, too.”

“Good.”

“Awesome.”

“Absolutely amazing.”

“Look, Clarke, how long – “

She kisses him before he’s even managed to realize what she’s doing, just full on fucking _tackles him_ because that’s Clarke Griffin and he might have a crick in the neck the next morning, his t-shirt doomed to grass stains on his back, but she’s on top of him and they’re just rolling around the grass, chasing each other’s lips.

When they plop down onto their backs, breathless like they’ve been wrestling, not kissing, Clarke turns her head towards him, a soft look in her eyes as she speaks.

“I totally won this one.”

Bellamy sighs, weary. Trust Clarke to make everything a competition. “And _I’m_ an asshole?”

“Come on, Bell,” she admonishes. “We’re _both_ assholes. We’re like – drift-compatible, but only, you know, shit-compatible.”

“Love is for the weak, right?”

“Fuck yeah,” she agrees fiercely, rolling on her side to face him and press a peck to his lips again. “We could pilot a Jaeger together. That’s so much better.”


	4. The Delinquents return to the dropship/Post s03

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Delinquents deciding to return to the dropship and make their own family. A lot of healing. Bitterness making way for sweetness.
> 
> Post season 3. Written after 3x04.
> 
> Bellarke featuring Minty and the other delinquents. 
> 
> There is a happy ending, THAT IS A PROMISE.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOOO SO 3x04 HAPPENED!
> 
> If this is shit, I am so sorry but it's 3:37am right now, I have to be up in three hours but I needed to write this fic because it'd just fucking implode in my chest if I hadn't done it.
> 
> I don't know what to tell you except that maybe fics will be our happy forever. I am dead, exhausted.
> 
> Alt. title: "From wreckage to salvation", that was in a promo somewhere idk i'm just a fic writer.

Camp Jaha seems whole now. It’s got a new name - Arkadia, indoor plumbing, enough resources for everyone. People are warm at night, there is no danger of anyone attacking them and it’s supposed to be their salvation.

Clarke thinks she prefers the wreckage. She prefers the wreckage of Mecha station, that huge metal skeleton that loomed over them, jagged ends of fence thrumming with live electricity. It wasn’t whole, but neither are their people.

She even prefers the dropship to this façade of being alright when no one is. Monty smiles whenever someone looks at him but when he thinks no one can see him, that’s when his face falls, from a smile to not quite a frown – just a look of wreck – in seconds.

From wreckage to salvation.

What sort of a shitty salvation is this?

At least in the dropship and in Camp Jaha they didn’t have to pretend like they were whole. They were wrecks and they could live in peace. No one to drag them to the side when they’ve had a rough night and tell them to pull it together for the sake of their people.

Bellamy’s cough interrupts her thoughts and Clarke’s head automatically comes up, searching for him in the crowd.

He’s closer than he ever was in the last two months and it startles her, gives her hope, does things to her she can’t figure out because she’s quit trying a long time ago.

“Do you mind?” he asks, looking like he’d rather run away all across Arkadia to get away from her. The guard jacket he’s wearing looks like a parody after what he’s done. Who the fuck did he guard?

_He guarded_ you _, many times_ , a voice inside Clarke’s head tells her and she pushes it down, quietens it with a shot of moonshine. Forgiveness is not what she’s feeling in the mood for. Not tonight.

Bellamy shifts his weight uneasily and finally, Clarke shrugs, waving her hand like she doesn’t care, like the moment he sits down won’t scorch her like flames.

“Thanks.” She knows the exact moment when he’s going to say that he’s sorry by the way he averts his gaze, swallows hard, eyes going a little glassy and reflecting the fire. “Clarke, I’m – “

“Sometimes I think we should’ve just stayed in the dropship,” she interjects, tracing the rim of her cup with a finger covered in bruises. There was an accident in the medical yesterday, something with electricity that made a door slam on her hand. It was painful but it felt grounding, like she’s alive. Like she needs a constant reminder that she is still here.

Bellamy blinks at her, lost for a second.

“When they came to get us, I thought – we’re safe now. We’ll be fine. The grownups are here.” Her mouth twists into a grimace. “And look at how that turned out.”

That turned into Jasper being the one who ended up in medical last night, just as she was about to call it a day and go to her room. Clarke likes to pretend like she’s sleeping, comforts herself with thinking that she’s still getting rest even though she’s just closed her eyes, and it’s a shitty thing to do but it’s something.

The first thing Jasper did when Monty and Miller placed him on the cot was hiss at Clarke. “You’re not touching me, killer.”

But she can’t really blame him.

Bellamy is not looking at her. His eyes are trained on the ground in front of him and Clarke wonders what happened to the rebel king who stood against the world. How did he turn into someone who stands with whoever offers retaliation?

“That’s why I think dropship would’ve been better. We should’ve just said – fuck Arkadia, fuck politics, fuck Wanheda, and you know what?” she asks and Bellamy’s eyes flick towards her. “Fuck Pike, too.”

There never was as much heat in her words as there was in Bellamy’s, always the one to rile up the masses. Now he was one of the masses he kept preaching to, an enforcer, not a ruler, and maybe Clarke can understand it but she doesn’t want to.

It’s not who he is. Not the same man who placed his hand on top of hers and nodded in Mt. Weather, not the one who dropped his head against a tree trunk after Dax tried to kill him and finally allowed how weary he was to show.

“We’ve got, what, four – five mass murders between the two of us and now we have to look like we’re alright? I don’t know about you, Bellamy, but I’m not alright. And I’m sick of pretending like I am.”

Fury boils in her veins now, always there, that anger she’s trying to keep contained, filed away for when she can deal with it. But it is always there, always itching at her skin and begging to be let out.

Well now there is fire, there is Bellamy and the world turns red.

“I am a mass murderer and so are you. Jasper told me I’m a killer yesterday and he was right. I’m sick of pretending like he wasn’t, like we can just erase the things we have done. Monty helped us, Bellamy. No one asks him how he feels. Miller can’t talk to his dad, his boyfriend left him because he couldn’t understand. We’ve got all this fucking weight that no one but us understands.”

That’s why she hates this standstill with Bellamy the most.

He’s the one she wants to talk to, the one she feels could understand what it’s like not to be able to sleep at night because your mind keeps replaying the endless dead bodies you can’t even count anymore.

And she can’t. Because she was gone and he’s gotten worse. Because she was gone and people kept leaving him.

“We could do it,” he says suddenly, cuts across the silence with determination she hasn’t heard in his voice for a very long time. “I mean it, Clarke. We could do it.”

Jus drein, jus daun – when she begged Lexa not to kill him like she had to kill Finn. When they placed the blame on Pike because he was dead and when Bellamy looked at her with his hands being freed from the chains, grateful, wrecked, torn apart between knowing that he deserves a death by a thousand cuts and not wanting to die.

 Jus drein, jus daun.

The voices still chant in her head, she begged, her knees have gone raw and it’s not that – her pride means nothing if she’s sacrificing it for the people she loves.

But she still can’t look at him and see past the grounders he’s killed because he was angry and lonely.

Still, there is something else. There is hope.

“How?”

It’s the first time she’s seen him smile since the day he found her with Roan.

*

It starts with hushed whispers, Monty and Miller’s eyes widening. Then it’s Jasper scoffing in her direction, a lot of heat gone from his glare. Raven who nods quickly, like it’s no question at all. Monroe and Harper who intertwine their fingers together and share a look full of hope, their little universe of love blooming between them.

A lot more people come to Bellamy and Clarke’s table at the mess hall. They’ve got two plates between them but their heads are still bowed together. This time, she doesn’t feel him like she’d feel mud. This time, she feels him like she’s just struck gold.

This time, it’s Bellamy and Clarke, back to square one and a bunker full of rifles they lugged back to the dropship.

“I heard you have a plan,” a girl says, shifting uneasily by their table. Abby looks their way and Clarke wants to say how sorry she is, that old pang of needing her mother to accept her appearing again.

But she’s not a kid anymore, hasn’t been for a very long time.

She and Bellamy are leaders now and they can fool themselves six ways till Sunday into thinking the opposite but it’s a lie. They have to own up to it.

“We do, yeah,” Bellamy confirms, his breath brushing hot past Clarke’s cheek and bringing shivers down her spine. How is he a killer when he is just a human man, too? “Are you in?”

“Yes.”

They always look determined, those who come to find them. They’re broken, Clarke sees it in the cagey look in their eyes, in the wringing of their hands. They’re broken and they just want to feel like it. The worst thing you can do with grief is ignore it.

Maybe they’ve doing it for too long.

 

The first visit to the dropship doesn’t go off without a hitch. Jasper is drunk, cries on the place where he scattered Finn’s ashes and it’s Clarke who comforts him, cards her fingers through the fluffy hair that he’s letting grow out now, tells him that it’s alright.

“Finn liked you, Jasper,” she assures him, smiling a little at the memory of the Spacewalker. That’s the thing with the dead, you always remember the good things about them. “He wouldn’t have minded that you scattered the ashes.”

It takes Jasper a long time but finally he presses out, “Maya liked you, too” and it feels like healing. It feels like growing.

 

Abby is worried when Clarke and Bellamy come to tell her about their plan. Kane is pacing by the window, sunlight streaming in through it and reflecting off of the metal surface, but neither one of them speaks for a long time.

Bellamy and Clarke stand shoulder to shoulder, side by side, daring them to forbid them from leaving.

It’s Abby who speaks first and Clarke sees how old her mom has gotten, how deep her wrinkles are now, how her shoulders slump under the weight of it all.

“You’re sure you can do this?”

It’s a vote of confidence that makes Clarke beam at everyone in the room and she doesn’t know what she’s doing until her mom widens her eyes at her.

It shouldn’t be the difference that makes or breaks the world but it still feels like it.

 

They don’t talk to each other unless they’re working on a way to keep the kids alive when they set off on their own and Clarke thinks she’s fine with it until Raven pulls her to the side, eyebrows drawn together.

“What the fuck, Griffin?”

When Clarke shows no sign of understanding what the mechanic is talking about, Raven rolls her eyes. “How long are you and Bellamy going to pretend like you don’t need each other?”

Months. Years. A lifetime. As long as it takes for her to stop wanting to punch him every time he smiles at her and looks like he’s hoping she’s going to offer him forgiveness.

“I don’t need him,” she lies because that’s what she does best. Puts her brave face on, builds a wall between herself and other people, lets the fury simmer until she can unleash it.

Raven lets out a weary sigh, looks older than her nineteen. She’s a hurricane contained in a girl’s body, dripping with spite that keeps her going even when everything hurts. A stubborn asshole who’s decided not to let anyone else have the final word in her life.

“Yeah, yeah, Clarke, you do. I hate him for what he’s done, too. Half of the people in Arkadia hate him _now_. But you don’t know how it was when those people died in Mount Weather. You don’t know because you weren’t here and we were all so fucking angry. Pike offered a way to react and most of us took it.”

Clarke stays quiet, lets Raven’s words sink in. They bruise every inch of her soul because she knows them to be true.

After a while, the other girl gives up. She never used to do that, either. “It’s easy to be a commander after the battle, Griffin. Keep that in mind.”

Raven still fixes up plumbing and electricity for the dropship, nods at Clarke when she passes her by. Every time there’s a silent plea in her eyes – _take the chance I didn’t get_.

 

They move to the dropship on the first day of spring, the ring that used to be one of fire now filled with cabins and plants sprouting from the dirt. Jasper is the first one to enter, looking like it’s going to be the death of him but he takes a deep breath and decides to give it a chance.

They’ve been surviving for a very long time. Maybe now’s the time to _live_.

Raven spends the first night with Clarke, the two of them cooped up on a small bed. The mechanic came over with a bottle of moonshine, plopped down on her bed like she belongs there and now they’re drunkenly petting each other’s hair and it feels like being a kid with Wells again.

“You’re so pretty,” Clarke tells her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “I’m so sad that you’re straight.”

Raven chuckles into Clarke’s collarbone, nips at it gently. “Yeah, me, too.”

It still feels like a moment of bliss no one thought they’d get. Raven still walks with a limp and Clarke still looks at her hands like she’s half-expecting to find blood there, but they’ll be fine.

The Delinquents have got each other. They have their little makeshift family that’s the only thing which can save them.

 

Octavia is nowhere to be found. The last Clarke had seen her was when Lincoln said Luna’s clan would take them in and she watched the scene of her leaving from a distance. Bellamy’s hands were bunched up in fists, taut by his side as his sister walked through the gate without looking back.

It wasn’t Clarke’s heartbreak, not her problem.

But then Octavia returns, murder still in her eyes as she walks through the dropship’s gate, and this time Clarke chooses that heartbreak to be hers, too.

“I see you’ve made yourself a home here, Bell. How many were taken away from theirs?”

Lincoln is idling by her side, waiting to hold her back if she attacks Bellamy. For his part, Bellamy is standing a few steps away from her, interrupted in explaining the correct way to skin a boar to one of the teenagers whose name Clarke doesn’t know, and he’s just taking the punches.

“How can you just live with what you’ve done?” Octavia demands again, her voice trembling.

God, Clarke realizes, it’s breaking her as much as it’s breaking Bellamy. But both of them are too stubborn to admit how much they love each other, how much they’ve tried to seek belonging in everyone else, just not the one person who they’ve always fit in with.

“Because – tell me – how do you still stand knowing that you’re the one they talk about as worse than even Wanheda?”

That’s when Clarke snaps, drops the gauzes she was applied to Harper’s hand, and all but runs across the camp, placing herself between Bellamy and Octavia.

The air reeks of hurt and she holds out a hand.

“Do you want to stay here, Octavia?”

The girl flinches as if scorched but she’s too slow for the disgust to look real. “How can you even ask that?”

“You came, didn’t you? Why would you come if you didn’t want to see Bellamy? You and Lincoln are advisors to the Chancellor of Arkadia, not to this camp.”

For a second, it looks like Octavia is going to cave in. But she spits on the ground in front of Clarke’s feet.

“Fuck you, _Wanheda_.”

With that, she storms off over to Jasper and Lincoln shoots them an apologetic look.

They’re too young for this burden.

Bellamy stops Clarke before she can leave, too, with a hand hovering over her forearm, never really touching her skin. His voice is gruff like when he’s about to cry and Clarke pushes back the sympathy she feels. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“Octavia is _my_ people, too, Bellamy.”

 

It’s not until the sunset that Octavia drops on the log next to Clarke with a plate of roasted boar in her hand, Bellamy’s eyes tracking them from across the fire pit.

“So, what did you decide to name it?” she asks, finally, and Clarke breathes out a laugh of relief.

It feels like a truce.

 

Miller and Monty get together during the summer, when the sun is hot enough to burn their skin if it’s exposed for too long, and no one really notices when the transition happens. One day they’re just sitting next to each other, thighs pressed together, and in the other, Miller has his head on Monty’s shoulder, kissing it.

“He’s the only one who understands,” Monty tells her later, when she congratulates him, tells him how happy she is for them. “He’s not – we’re not perfect. I don’t think we’ll ever be but this is good. Jasper is coming around, too. This is – “

The boy struggles to find the right words, pouting, and Clarke presses a hand to his shoulder.

“Home.”

Monty smiles at her, grateful. “Yeah, home.”

The next morning, Miller kisses him in front of everyone after Monty’s almost gotten himself killed falling from a tree. Miller’s hands are wound into the front of Monty’s shirt, lips pressed together, desperate.

“Don’t you ever do that again,” he commands and Monty just nods, confused, flushing up to the tip of his ears. “You scared the shit out of me.”

The camp erupts into cheers and Bellamy catches Clarke’s eye.

“Miller’s in love, isn’t he?” she asks him, a peace offering. “Because Monty is.”

They are parents, so full of love for this children they feel responsible for.

“He’s Nathan now.” When Clarke raises her eyebrows, Bellamy ducks his head, hiding a small, genuine smile. “Said he’s been tough for a long time, now he just wants to be soft.”

That’s the next step after you’ve scratched your skin raw and after people have broken your bones – you decide to be even braver. You decide to let the right ones try again.

 

Bellamy is the last one she comes to find. They keep talking to each other, of course they do, but it’s always strained. He never pushes and that’s what fucks her up in the end, what makes her march to his cabin and threaten to break down the doors if he doesn’t let her in.

He’s in his pajamas, a threadbare T-shirt and patched up flannel pants, when he opens the door and he looks the most confused she’s ever seen him.

“Tell me,” she starts, whirling into his cabin like a hurricane, knocking down a book or two, “did you ever really need my forgiveness or?”

“What are you talking about?”

“That’s what you want, right? Me to tell you that I forgive you.”

Bellamy finally catches on, closes the door before the whole dropship can hear them, and he ushers her further in. There’s a small table he probably made himself, a stack of books, maps, clothes and trinkets she never would’ve thought Bellamy Blake kept.

“Isn’t that what you want from me?” he retorts, taking a seat by the table and leaning on his clasped hands. He looks like he’s given up a long time ago and Clarke knows that feeling very well.

“I don’t need you forgiveness,” she spits out. “You’re the one who killed all those Grounders, you’re the one who almost did what Finn – “

There she stops herself because there are lines you can’t uncross.

Bellamy’s mouth falls wide open, eyes widening and it’s how raw he looks that brings her to sit next to him, inhale, exhale, quietly, carefully – barely keeping it together.

“I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Yeah, you should have. What I’ve done is even worse than what Finn did.”

It is. It is, and she keeps reminding herself of it but her heart needs more convincing.

“It’s my fault. I should’ve been there.”

And that’s why she’s angry at him, why she can’t let go of it. Because if she admits why she’s angry, she’ll have to admit that it’s her fault, too.

“I guess we’ve both got a lot of things we’re guilty of.”

Neither of them speak for a very long time and when Bellamy gets up, she half-expects him to tell her to leave. Instead, he just asks her if she wants to stay, looking raw again but in a different way. In a way that reminds her of their first Unity Day on Earth, of how everything between them shifted in a matter of hours, of how her world keeps tilting on its axis for Bellamy.

Nothing makes sense with him, but she finds enough strength to forgive again.

“I forgive you,” she says instead. “I forgive myself. I forgive Monty, and Raven, too. I forgive us all because we were always trying to do the right thing. That’s what we’ve got.”

It shouldn’t feel like coming home when he smiles, honest, and moves away the covers for her to squeeze in next to him. They smell like the fresh water in the brook next to the dropship and she breathes it in.

Bellamy is close enough for Clarke to feel the warmth on her skin but they’re not touching. A lot of people aren’t touching each other these days, like it’s the human contact that’s going to kill them.

Maybe the two of them can be the first ones, she thinks as she presses her cold feet to the small of his back and chuckles when he lets out a strained yelp.

“What the hell was that for?” he demands, turning around to face her. He’s got all these freckles, wild curls he’s cut to the skin when he returned from Polis and which are now just growing back.

Can you love a murderer?

Probably not.

Can a murderer love a murderer?

Yes.

“For being an asshole who’s letting me freeze to death.”

Bellamy screws up his face but tugs her in, resting his chin on top of her head. The crooks of their bodies fit in with each other, fit in like the Delinquents finally fit in, like Octavia finally fits in, in this half-world between the sky and the ground.

These days, they are a family. A dysfunctional one? Sure. But they’ve got each other. They’ll always have each other.

It’s enough.

 


	5. Real leaders wear flower crowns / Bellarke + flower crowns / s01 divergent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exactly what it says on the tin: Bellamy, Clarke and flower crowns.
> 
> Set sometime between Day Trip and Unity Day. 
> 
> 100% fluff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is for my fave sunshine, [smolbellamy](http://smolbellamy.tumblr.com)/Anna, because her url always makes me think of pissed off smol Bellamy who is done with everything and then someone puts a flower crown on top of his head. HAPPY VALENTINE’S, BABE! <33
> 
> Enjoy!

 

Clarke isn't sure what's going on; all she knows is that in one moment, she could hear Bellamy shouting at someone to pick up the pace, and in the other, their fierce leader was sitting by the fire pit with a flower crown perched on top of his head.

Now, Clarke has seen some shit. In these couple of weeks they've been on Earth, she's killed men, saved lives and also - gotten high, but just when she thought nothing could surprise her, there's Bellamy.

He looks decidedly unamused, sitting with his arms crossed and staring into the fire as Octavia pouts, adjusting the flower crown on his head until she must find it satisfactory because she lets out a triumphant cheer.

"There! Now you look like a real princess, Bell!"

To repeat, Clarke has seen some weird shit. But this is so way out of any league, so she strides over to the fire, shoots a glare at Jasper who is snickering because Bellamy looks uncomfortable, and clears her throat.

Both of the Blakes' heads snap towards her and she'd be delighted, the concept of siblings a fascinating one amidst all that only children on the Ark, but their expressions clash.

Where Octavia looks smug, Bellamy just looks disconcerted, a crease forming between his brows.

"Clarke! Get over here!" Octavia calls for her, making grabby motions at Harper until the other girl hands her a crown woven with yellow flowers, as opposed to Bellamy's purple.

Clarke lets Octavia place it on her head, fuss around the correct placement and only then asks,

"What's all this?”

"Bell said we need to boost the morale."

"And flower crowns are a way to do that?"

When Bellamy shoots her a bemused look, Clarke realizes that things have really changed lately. Ever since that trip to the bunker, where an unspoken deal was struck, all it took was a glance in Bellamy's direction to know whether he agreed with her idea or not.

It would be frightening if it wasn't the best thing that has happened since they landed.

"Flower crowns are _lovely_ ," Octavia threatens, baring her fangs just a little. "I'll take yours away if you don’t appreciate them."

Clarke throws her hands up in mock surrender, plopping down beside Bellamy. "No, no, they're great."

They kind of are, really. Bellamy's is purple, probably fluorescent in the dark and it sort of makes him look like old Earth royalty, the clash of purple in the inky black curls.

He looks nice, Clarke thinks and then immediately stops herself because this is _not_ what she needs right now. Sure, Bellamy is handsome, uncharacteristically beautiful even - with the freckles forming constellations on his cheeks and his nose, dimples that appear whenever he really smiles and it's odd, how that thought makes something stir in her belly.

"-really fucking weird."

Clarke snaps out of it, focusing her attention on Bellamy who is muttering at the ground and kicking a stray pebble in front of his feet.

"Excuse me?"

"It's a stupid idea anyway," he mutters again, landing the pebble into the fire.

"Why do you hate happiness, Bellamy?"

He shoots her a glare. "I don't. I just don't think purple is my color."

_Oh._

"I thought this was gonna be one of those 'I'm a man, men don't wear flower crowns' things," Clarke admits, smiling when she gets a chuckle out of him.

"Everyone wears flower crowns. They _are_ lovely but, you know."

"Do you want to trade?"

That takes her right back to school on the Ark, where they'd trade crayons and bracelets amongst themselves. Wells made her a friendship bracelet once, a tiny, frail thing she had to carefully put on because it was just two threads and a blue plastic pearl.

It snapped when they threw her into the solitary.

But Bellamy looks at her, a little incredulous, and then nods. The rebel king takes off his purple flower crown carefully, with more gentleness than Clarke would've thought he was capable of, and hands it to her.

Yellow looks good on him, too, kind of like sunshine. She places her crown on his head, her hand accidentally brushing his curls and reveling in the softness. She gets the girls who kept running fingers through his hair, she'd wanna do that, too.

"Better?" Clarke asks, only to have Bellamy beaming at her in response. "Yeah, I like this color better, too."

"Good."

They don't get these moments of childishness and innocence on Earth. Bellamy probably didn't have them on the Ark, either. But they get what they can spare and they treasure it which is why Clarke leans on his shoulder, letting out a weary sigh.

Bellamy tenses up next to her, a moment in which she reconsiders her decision but ultimately chooses to stay until he softens. There's this begrudging understanding between them now and maybe it can stretch further beyond.

It takes him a second or two to shift, draping an arm over her shoulders and pulling her in just a little closer.

"Long day?”

Clarke hums in confirmation. "Jasper cut his hand preparing the lunch, Fox sprained her ankle and Finn - "

"Finn is just Finn, huh?"

Yeah, Finn is just Finn, endlessly pulling at her sleeve, shooting puppy dog stares her way, and all Clarke can think about is how Raven doesn't deserve this.

"How's your side of the camp?"

"Miller's got the wall under control, Monty and Raven are working on making more bullets and Octavia is making flower crowns."

His serious tone of voice is what really cracks her up and Clarke is howling with laughter in a moment of seconds. The Delinquents stop and stare, watching her clap like a seal and choke on laughs as Bellamy watches the scene unfold with a fond gaze.

They're also the leaders who are wearing flower crowns, so, yeah, it's no wonder the kids are staring.

She manages to calm down after a second, despite every look in Bellamy's direction making her laugh even harder, and then she presses out, "Were you jealous? Did you want to be a princess, too?"

"Oh, fuck you," he shoots back, amused, no real heat to it, and she snuggles into his side again.

Bellamy Blake is warm, smells like smoke and the woods, and she just might not leave this place. Ever.

"For what it's worth, I think you look cute," she says after a while. There is a beat of silence and Clarke looks up to see Bellamy ducking his head to hide a smile.

After that, it's easy to lace their fingers together, the two of them huddled by the fire as the night slowly descends on the camp. They don't talk about it but Bellamy presses a kiss to the top of her head, brushing a petal or two on his way.

It's not going to last, this calm in which they can sit together and pretend like they don't have an entire planet on their mind.

But it's enough, one sunset leaking orange on the woods, and Octavia grinning when she sees them.

"See? I told you, Bell. First step to getting a princess: you need to become one."


	6. Grease AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grease AU ~ where the Pink Ladies are mechanics who love racing and keep switchblades hidden in their boots, Bellamy Blake ain’t got shit on Clarke’s girls and who the hell said the guys had the monopoly on cars?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a prompt: "Please make an Bellarke AU of the movie grease. Clarke being sandy and Bellamy being danny" and let me tell you, dear friend, I was so inspired I wrote this in the middle of the night on my phone. Thank you! :D
> 
> It kind of spiralled into the Pink Ladies being awesome, cars and racing.
> 
> Enjoy!

 

"The thing is, Griffin, guys like Blake don't go for nice girls," Raven Reyes informs Clarke, blowing up a huge pink, strawberry-scented balloon bubble.

She and Raven, along with the rest of the Pink Ladies – Harper and Monroe - are sitting on the bench in front of their school and Raven is wolf-whistling at every hot guy who passes by.

"I'm not _just_ a nice girl," Clarke protests, offended at the insinuation. She _is_ a nice girl, nothing wrong with that but - "I am so much more."

Raven turns her head and slides her sunglasses down the bridge of her nose more dramatically than it’s probably necessary. When she speaks, her grin is positively shark-like. "So why don't you show the world what you've got?"

"I just might."

With that, she pops the bubble Raven blew up and strides away with a smirk plastered across her face.

Oh, she can do _bad_.

 

*

 

The next morning, her skirt and shirt stay at home, straightening iron dropped somewhere by the trash can.

What she does instead is put on a pair of skin-tight black pants, a black shirt that's gonna devastate every girl and guy in a ten mile radius, and lets her hair go frizzy because she's done taming herself.

She fucking loves the Pink Ladies for that exact reason. They are defiance, Raven's hands stained with car grease from working in her dad's shop day and night - loving every second of it.

Harper, flashing smiles back and forth until she pulls a switchblade out of her boot if you mess with her girls.

Monroe, a beauty school dropout who could probably punch you in the face and you'd say thank you.

They're the Pink Ladies, leather jackets, too loud laughter and not an ounce of apology in their bodies.

When Clarke walks down the hallway that morning, shoulders back, head high and thinking murder, wolf-whistles and dropped jaws trail in her wake.

However, no one is louder than Raven, leaning on her locker and eyeing Clarke with a smug smile.

"Work it, Griffin! Show us what you've got!"

Clarke twirls around in the hallway, nearly falls on her ass because _these heels are too damn high_ and then it's liberation.

She walks freely, laughs freely, raises her hand at every answer she knows in her classes instead of keeping quiet as to not look eager.

Honestly, she doesn't even remember about Bellamy until the lunch when Harper elbows her in the ribs, whispering, "Bellamy is looking at you!"

Bellamy, whose hair is slicked back and who keeps smirking like he's never once lost his cool, but Clarke has seen him with messy curls and looking utterly wrecked so it's her turn to smile now.

If she walks with an extra wiggle in her step when she casually strolls past him, showing no hint of recognition, so be it.

 

*

 

"Clarke."

He sounds strained and pained as he leans on the locker next to hers, pleading.

Clarke _loves_ it.

"What's up, Bellamy?"

_Don't lose your cool. The guys think they're the only ones with it but you're wearing a leather jacket with 'the Pink Ladies' engraved on it and you're the best._

"Wanna go for a milkshake tonight?"

He sounds exasperated, like he's torn about asking this because she was good for the summer - a princess this rebel king wanted to take.

Oh, but she's the queen, hasn't he heard?

"Mm," she makes a show of considering it, "no. I have plans with the girls already. But I'm sure you'll be just fine with your boys."

His brows furrow in confusion and Clarke taps his chest.

"See y'a around, _stud_."

 

*

 

Raven's car is fast, killer red and when they roll the roof down, wind hits Clarke so sweet she thinks she never wants this to end.

She's sitting on the top of the backseat of Raven's convertible, laughing as they blast the catchy tunes she used to dance to, and Raven just keeps pressing the gas pedal.

She's a sucker for speed and so is Clarke.

"Hey, Raven," Clarke calls for her, sliding down the seat until she's squeezed between Harper and Monroe comfortably, the two protesting because they were just about to make out. "You think I could drive for a bit?"

Raven flashes her that arrogant look, that one that is absolutely irresistible, makes Clarke wish Raven wasn't straight as an arrow, and teases, "Clarke Griffin? You'd choke the engine."

"I wouldn't!"

It comes out high-pitched and Raven laughs, pulling over to the curb after a second. The night is young, the highway is barely illuminated and every single one of them loves this feeling of freedom.

"Fine, lemme see what you've got."

Clarke slides into the driver's seat, revels in the way the leather of the steering wheel fits to her skin and in that moment, she is invincible.

When the car roars to life, she slams her foot on the gas pedal, alternating easily as she shifts gears. Raven is laughing triumphantly next to her, patting her shoulder and Harper and Monroe cheer.

"Knew you had it in you!" Monroe screams, throwing her hands up. The road is endless and so are they.

These girls are going to take over the world and Clarke loves them so much her heart is spilling over.

"Come on, let's go tease those wimps," Harper suggests, nodding towards the exit to a racetrack the T-Birds use.

Raven raises her eyebrows, as if checking if that's alright with Clarke, but Clarke doesn't care. What is a boy to a screaming red car, tires squealing on the asphalt and being young, being free?

Miller grins when he sees them pulling in, closing the hood of Bellamy's pale blue Cadillac. It's a beaut, that car, but it's 'lady in the streets freak in the sheets' whereas Raven's is just the sweet taste of danger.

"You're gonna kill Bellamy, Clarke," Miller tells her, leaning on the space where a window should be on Clarke's side.

"So sorry," she says dryly and Miller waves his hand.

"Don't be." Then, a vicious grin. "I'm looking forward to it, my money is on you. Just make sure you wreck him real good."

And she does.

Oh, she does, because Bellamy is not smooth when she pulls up with a turn two inches from where he's standing, dust rising in her wake.

His eyes darken as he looks at her, takes her in behind the wheel, hands haphazardly on the wheel, and she swears he's going to set himself on fire when she asks,

"Wanna see whose car is better?"

She wins. But there is a second, in which he looks at her through his window and all she wants to do is open the doors and kiss the sense out of him on the hood of his sensible blue car.

The victory tastes sweeter.

The Pink Ladies are cheering for her when she gets back, struts over to them, a little victory dance because she made it in the last second, made him believe he was winning and then overtook him with a beep of the horn.

Bellamy is standing next to Miller who can barely keep his laughter contained, shooting careful glances her way, and the air is thick with tension between them.

"I wanna race, too!" Raven exclaims, high on adrenaline like they always are on nights like these. "Blake, you up for it?"

The silence stretches on and on, dim yellow lights casting shadows on everyone's faces and there is something Clarke can't recognize in his voice when he speaks.

"Yeah. But I want Clarke to drive my car."

Clarke totters to his car in a stupor, flinches when he climbs into the passenger seat. The air smells like thick cologne and summer sun when Bellamy leans over to show her how to work his car best.

It's a fake attempt of keeping her cool when she references the Beatles, "You want me to drive your car because I'm gonna be a star?"

Bellamy blinks, hand frozen on the stick shift, and croaks out, earnest, "Yeah. I love seeing you behind my wheel."

And now she knows what it is, the inexplicable thing in his voice, in his guarded movements.

Want.

Want that makes her dizzy, barely gets her through the finish line, sends heat down her body, burns her alive by the time she's burnt the rubber.

Bellamy's been watching her all through the ride, open interest, but he looks fragile now. His eyes are wide, lips slightly parted and curls bouncing in the light reflecting into his car.

Wrecked, as he grabs onto the glove compartment, muscles rippling where she can see them.

"I always liked you. I'm sorry I was an ass. I'll do better, if you'll have me."

"You called me a princess and told me those are good only for tasting."

But damn, the memory of his curls between her thighs is almost as good as the smell of gasoline and freedom.

"I bet you taste like gasoline now," he counters, the corners of his lips pulling up. Clarke freezes when he comes closer, licking his lips and looking at hers. "And I wanna get high on you."

"Let's see what you've got, Blake."

 

*

 

The next Monday, Bellamy is standing in front of the school with his hand around Clarke's waist, careful not to cover up the Pink Ladies stitching.

He's an ass but so is she. And Clarke is happy as long as she gets to do whatever she pleases on the hood of his car once everyone else has left.

"So yeah, can I be an honorary member?" he asks Raven, blushing a little. "The Pink Ladies are awesome."

It's then that Dax stops in front of him, grinning viciously and with a swagger in his step that means Harper is already reaching for her pink switchblade.

"Heard your girlfriend beat you on Friday, Blake."

And Bellamy - Bellamy just beams at Clarke, squeezing her side a little, and says, "Yeah, she did, Clarke's a badass."

With a sugary sweet smile, Clarke adds, "And I'll slash your tires, too, just try me, Dax."

The Pink Ladies and Bellamy Blake are such a bad influence.

But it'd be a lie to say that Clarke isn't enjoying every minute of it.


	7. Bellamy doesn't trust doctors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy calls Clarke when he's sick because he doesn't trust any other doctor. Modern AU. FLUFF.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a prompt: "So I have this fear of doctors. When I was younger I had this traumatizing event (where THEY LIED TO ME) and now I don't trust them. and. Just imagine Bellarke. just. imagine. oh my god."
> 
> I imagined Bellarke. This is what happened. I can also sympathize with the experience because doctors are the worst. And I had appendix surgery on my 18th bday, I'm still bitter about it, and this is what this fic is about. Also, Bellarke and Bellamy being snuggly when he's weak.
> 
> This is wildly unbeta'd, and unedited. It is what it is, I hope you can forgive me.
> 
> Enjoy!

“Alright, so I’m not saying that there is a conspiracy, but – “ Bellamy frowns at Clarke, looking wary of her reaction, and finishes with a sigh, “but there might be.”

“About doctors? You’re saying that doctors have, at one point in space and time, conspired to ruin _your_ , Bellamy Blake’s, life?”

He shoots her a rueful smile, half-shrugs with the shoulder that’s peeking out of the blankets he’s got himself wrapped up in, and Clarke can’t find it in herself to be mad.

Honestly, he’s just a fucking mess, her best friend is. There he is, curled up in his bed because he has stomach pain that is “at least twelve on a scale from one to ten” and he called her because –

“Of all the doctors I know, I only trust you.”

“Because the others have conspired against you?” she asks again, just to confirm that she’s not delusional after a long shift that’s had her patching up jerks who want to impress their even jerkier friends, people who’ve been in car accidents and kids who try to keep their brave face on.

She admires the kids, they’re the best. It’s the adults that are whiny, like Bellamy Blake with his curls stuck to his forehead and twitching whenever he breathes in.

“Don’t make fun of me, I’m dying!” he protests, trying to get up but ends up flailing and failing. When he’s back on his back, looking up at her with his huge, puppy dog eyes, he just asks, “Help?”

“Yeah, okay,” Clarke agrees, pushing back the hair that’s fallen in her face and carefully reaches for the covers. Immediately, Bellamy shifts and his fingers grab the blanket tighter, a panicked look in his face.

“What are you doing?”

Clarke scoffs. “Trying to examine you? Just because you think all doctors are telepathically connected so they can ruin your life better, that doesn’t mean we can telepathically examine our patients.”

It’s borderline ridiculous, this conversation. Not that the rest of the conversations she has with Bellamy are any better, but. This is Twilight Zone. The rest of them are more like the X-Files.

Bellamy seems to consider her words and then nods quickly, letting go of the blanket so Clarke can pull it down. As soon as the heat leaves him, he flinches and curls up further.

“What exactly hurts? Your stomach?”

“No, like,” he wrinkles up his nose, frowns, “lower?”

“Your pancreas? Your liver?”

Bellamy stays quiet and Clarke huffs, realizing what this is about.

“It’s your fucking appendix, isn’t it?”

Bellamy flashes her an apologetic smile and Clarke places her hands on his side, rubbing gentle patterns until he relaxes a bit, unclenches his muscles. The cow’s been killed, now they have to make a burger. Nine out of ten cases on appendicitis end up in emergency surgery and going by in how much pain Bellamy is right now, he’ll be on the slab by the end of the day.

“Is it that bad?” he asks, nodding towards her hands but doesn’t make a move to shove her off. Instead, he leans into her touch, presses the back of his head to her thighs on the bed.

One thing about Bellamy Blake – he hates being weak. He would literally fight every flu that he’d caught until it gave up and let him live. When he’s at his worst, that’s when he rejects every affection.

And seeing him like this – turning to putty under Clarke’s hands and snuggling closer – it’s gotta be bad.

“Will you let me check?” she asks in response, careful, quiet. He nods, turning to lie on his back again and presses his lips like one of those kids with their brave faces she sees. It sends lightning bolts of fondness down Clarke’s body and she gets the sudden urge to kiss him.

Except that’s probably not right and it’s just her exhaustion speaking.

“Alright. Let’s do this.”

Bellamy stops her with his fingers around her wrist, making Clarke snap her head towards him. When he speaks, he sounds honest and – raw. “Will you tell me what you’re doing? And don’t lie, please. I don’t care how bad it is.”

She softens at that, nods. “Of course, Bell. I wouldn’t do that.”

“That’s why I hate doctors, they lied to me when I was a kid and – “

Now, that’s the kind of colleagues Clarke has and hates. You don’t lie to people. You don’t lie to kids, either. Yes, there are some diagnoses that seem like they’re too hard to explain, but your patient is your patient and you have to tell them the truth, not just lie to them and leave the explaining to their parents or guardians.

It pisses her off to no end.

“Fucking jerks. Yeah, don’t worry.” She removes her hands from his side, hovers them near his navel. “Alright, first thing I’m going to do – I’ll press at various points, lightly. As soon as you feel pain or discomfort, let me know, okay? I don’t care if it’s a one on the pain scale, you let me know. Got it?”

Bellamy grins at her. “Got it, Doc.”

When she presses just a finger from his right hipbone, Bellamy swears, arching off the bed. It takes him a minute to calm down, ragged breaths turning into slower-paced ones, and that’s when Clarke chooses to speak.

“You’ll need to get some tests but I’m pretty sure it’s appendicitis.”

“There’s no way you could be wrong?”

She shoots him a pleading look, feeling like shit for having to break the news to him, but Bellamy waves his hand. “Yeah, I know. So, what happens next?”

“You have to go to the hospital.”

His eyes widen in horror, trembling hands pulling the covers up to his chin again as he shakes his head. “No way, I’m not doing that!”

Clarke presses a hand to his forehead, chuckles when he tries to swat it away without losing the grip on the blanket, and frowns when she notices how warm his skin is getting.

“Bell, you really have to. If you don’t, your appendix could rupture and that means you’ll stay in the hospital longer.”

“Can’t I just avoid that altogether? I have knives in the kitchen, you can just rip me open and get this shit over with.”

“ _Bellamy_.”

“I even have Monty’s moonshine, that’ll knock me out. Fuck anesthesia, am I right?”

*

It’s only by a stroke of luck that Clarke manages to convince him to get his ass into her car and go to the hospital. But as soon as they enter the building, Bellamy grabs onto her hand with a firm grip and doesn’t let go, not even when they have to take his blood out.

Clarke doesn’t comment on it, just smiles a little every time she realizes that she can’t do something with her left hand because it’s in his, and Bellamy keeps shooting her defiant glares, like he thinks she’s actually going to try and unlatch herself from him.

Thankfully, Harper is on duty that night which is a blessing. She’s the bravest one between them, meaning that she keeps being a nice person instead of trying to compartmentalize and come off as an emotionally detached robot. It takes bravery to do that, and her calming demeanor helps Bellamy.

He still frowns when Harper approaches them with ultrasound machine, looking wary of it. “What’s that?”

“She’s gonna probe you,” Clarke whispers into his ear and laughs out loud when he jumps up, flinching because that makes the pain even worse. “Just kidding, come on. It’s an ultrasound, Bell. No aliens here.”

“No aliens here?” Harper asks, prepping the machine. “You’ve never met Dr. Tsing, huh?”

“Dr. Tsing isn’t an alien, she’s just – “Clarke struggles to find the right words for the doctor who just looks like she’d run some illegal tests on people. “She’s just peculiar.”

Harper levels her with an unimpressed glare, in violent contrast with the pink scrubs she’s wearing. “She literally said she’d conduct pain experiments on that buff guy the other day, and I quote, just to see how much he could take.”

“Fine. Point taken.”

Bellamy, who has been observing their exchange, now turns to Clarke, deep horror in his eyes. “She’s not – she’s not going to – “

“Nah, don’t worry. She’s not an abdominal surgeon, you’re in the clear.”

Bellamy doesn’t look very convinced but he lets it slide as Harper instructs him to lie down. It was as Clarke suspected – his appendix is pretty inflamed and Clarke’s colleague flashes her a sympathetic smile.

“What’s going on?” Bellamy asks, his head in Clarke’s lap as she gently cards her fingers through his inky curls. They have a weird relationship, she’ll give them that – it’s half explosions, half this nice, persistent flame.

A lot of getting drunk on shitty vodka and watching Brooklyn Nine Nine, too.

“You’ll need surgery.”

He doesn’t stop swearing for the next half an hour and then they’re getting him a room, all the usual proceedings that Clarke has been on the other side of for most of the time.

It’s different now that it’s her friend who’s going to get a surgery, whose curls stick to his forehead as he bites into his lip to swallow the pain and who looks at her with wide, terrified eyes as he asks her to stay.

“Of course, Bell,” she assures him, fixing his pillow so he’s more comfortable. In the last few hours that they’ve spent in the hospital, he’s gotten more sullen, his cheeks going ashen and Clarke knows appendectomy is a regular procedure, nothing to it, but she can’t stop worrying.

Because this is Bellamy they’re talking about and she may trust her colleagues, but. He means the world to her, in every way imaginable.

Clarke’s changing the channels, trying to find Sponge Bob somewhere (the surefire way to make Bellamy feel better when he’s down), when Bellamy groans, attracting her attention.

He’s curled up into a ball – again – lying on his side and glares in her direction, although he’s probably just glaring at the whole world.

“If I die, Octavia – “

Clarke rolls her eyes, letting out a nervous chuckle. “You’re not going to die, Bellamy.”

“Okay, but if I die, Octavia gets my apartment, you get my books and make sure you write me a really nice eulogy. In like iambic pentameter or something good. Don’t let Miller speak on my funeral. You should do that. Make me sound cool. Hire people in black suits to – “

“Bellamy.” He stops, looks up, breaks Clarke’s heart just like that. “You’re rambling. It’s going to be alright.”

It’s as if he’s going to continue out of spite, Clarke’s just getting ready for more rambling, but then the feeling dissipates, the tension palpable in the air vanishes like it’s never been there and Bellamy just huffs. In a second, he’s gone from spiteful to sorrowful and Clarke crouches by his bed, takes his hand in hers.

“What’s up, Bell? Are you scared? It’s okay to be scared.”

“Do you talk to kids like that, too?” he asks, but doesn’t sound like it bothers him.

“So what if I do?”

A beat of silence, his eyes going a little glassy above the freckles Clarke swore she’d draw one day. Bellamy Blake, her best friend, the one who pushed her off of a ladder the first time they met. Bellamy Blake, the stupid dork she’s stupidly in love with.

When he speaks, he sounds honest and Clarke wonders if there’ll ever come a day when the sight of him letting his walls down for her won’t break her heart. “Thank you for being here, Clarke.”

His hand is warm in hers when she interlaces their fingers, gives it a little squeeze along with what she hopes is a reassuring smile.

A nurse comes to get him half an hour later, interrupts him in the middle of bitterly laughing because Patrick the Star is the worst, and when Clarke tries to pry his hand off of hers, she can’t.

“Bellamy, you’re not going to die, come on. I’ll be here, won’t move an inch.”

But Bellamy just shakes his head, petulant. “No way. I changed my mind. I’m gonna risk it.”

“You can’t, _that’s_ how you could die.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, _oh_ ,” she mocks, pulling at one of his curls. “C’mon, Bell, let go and it’ll be good.”

The nurse is trying not to giggle, standing a couple of steps away, but her gaze on them is soft and Clarke wonders whether they really seem like they’re together. They get that a lot, people in grocery stores asking them how long they’ve been together and all of their friends badgering them into asking one another out, but. Clarke’s not sure that she has a shot. She’s not sure that anyone has a shot with Bellamy, who seems like he’s resigned himself to flings and one night stands.

Which is just as well, really. She can live with that. Even being his friend is better than she would’ve imagined.

“You don’t have to stay, I’ll probably just be knocked out and incoherent,” he says, but still doesn’t let go. Is this how mothers feel at the first day of kindergarten with their kids? Her very adult friend has separation anxiety and the worst thing is – so does she.

“Tough luck, asshole. I’m staying.” And with that, she presses a peck to his cheek, hoping that he’s not going to remember that after anesthesia.

The tips of his ears go pink and he ducks his head a little as his lips curve into one of those smiles that seem bashful and brazen at the same time. He mutters, “You’re a dick, Clarke.” And then, after a second of worrying his lower lip, “If I don’t die, will you go out with me?”

“Yeah, I’ll prop you up and everything.”

Bellamy shoots her a severely unimpressed glare she imagines he uses on his students quite often and clarifies, “Not what I meant. I meant a date. I just figured, you know, if I’m about to die - you should at least know that I’m in love with you.”

Just like that. He just goes and says it, like it’s no trouble at all. Like it’s no big deal, like she hasn’t wanted to chug pesticide to get rid of the fucking butterflies whenever he slung an arm across her shoulders and pulled her in close.

“I’d punch you if you weren’t sick right now,” she tells him, trying to stay calm because he infuriates her with this. Of course, she’s really fucking happy, too, that’s out of the question – but now that she knows that he feels the same way, after her heart has flipped in her chest, now she can get angry.

“Cute first date idea.”

Clarke keeps laughing even after they’ve rolled him out. She keeps laughing when the doctors bring him back and he motions her forward, presses a sloppy kiss to her cheek and says, “Griffins are better than dragons anyway”.

She keeps laughing because it’s easy to do that now. Her heart feels light and full in her chest and really, why would she even be surprised? This is Bellamy Blake we’re talking about.

 

 

 


	8. *doesn’t undo laces and almost breaks ankle trying to get shoes off* It's faster this way!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I got a prompt: "I saw this post |||: *doesn’t undo laces and almost breaks ankle trying to get shoes off* it’s… faster.. this way.. ||| and I just imagined it being a bellarke moment/prompt or something CAN YOU IMAGINE"
> 
> I imagined it and here we have Bellamy nearly spraining his ankle and Clarke being amused.

They’ve been roommates for six months when it all comes crashing down.

Literally.

Clarke is just doodling on the couch, safely ensconsed in her favorite pink blanket and too lazy to get up to pee, when there’s a thudding sound from the hallway, followed by a muffled yelp.

“Bell? Is that you?” 

When she recognizes his voice behind the string of profanities, Clarke laughs. “You alright there?”

“No!”

And Clarke may love the safety of her blanket, but. Bellamy is her best friend. She _probably_ owes him to check. Especially because he’s a clumsy fucker who can’t admit he needs help.

(Honestly, she’s even worse.)

The cold air streaming in through the wide open front door leaves goosebumps on Clarke’s skin and she needs a second to actually recognize Bellamy under a pile of coats and a totally wrecked coat rack.

She sees his messy curls first.

And then - “Fuck everything!”

“Do you need me to call 911?” she asks, because she honestly has no idea what to do. He’s buried under a pile of coats, keeps swearing and it is pretty funny, but.

He could be hurt under there.

Then she sees a movement underneath the pile of black, grey and bottle green peacot she got for her 22nd birthday, and a shoe pops out. Also, a hand.

It takes her a while but Clarke eventually realizes that Bellamy is trying to take off his shoes by tugging on them, hard. Every time he does, something else in the small hallway clatters to the floor.

“You have to unlace them first, Bellamy.”

A dark brown eye and a strip of his tan skin peers through the pile. “No,” he counters, tugging at his shoe again as Clarke tries to move away the coats. “No, Clarke, it’s faster this way.”

Finally, she drops the last coat obscuring him to the floor and even though she’s been trying hard not to laugh in the face of her best friend’s misery, when she sees him pouting, she can’t stop herself.

Bellamy looks at her bemusedly as she doubles forward, landing on the coats right next to his elbow and rolling in them as he keeps trying to yank his shoes off.

He is thirty years old, has a phD and still can’t take off his shoes like a normal person. 

It takes her a while to calm down but by then, he’s managed to take his shoes off and now he’s just wiggling his zebra print-clad toes, amused.

“Are those mine?” Clarke asks, frowning at the socks. Bellamy’s cheeks pink prettily as he ducks his head, hiding a small smile. 

“I like them.”

“They’re too small for you.”

“Yeah,” he grants, shrugging. “But I like them. They remind me of you.” There’s still a smile playing on his lips, putting dimples in his cheeks and making Clarke question her sanity when her heart flips. “I like _you_.”

It takes her brain a second to catch up and then she’s gaping.

“Are you seriously saying you like me when you’ve tried to take off your shoes without unlacing them first?”

“It’s a train wreck already, so. Didn’t think it could hurt.”

Clarke grins at him because - no, it couldn’t hurt. She’s already too far gone to care. She doesn’t even care that he’s the weirdest fucking person who puts paprika chips into his sandwiches, so. Everything else is progress, really.

When she slides into his lap, close enough to count his freckles, Bellamy’s smile widens. “It’s a good thing I like you, too. But we’re gonna get you shoes without laces.”

Five years later, nothing changes. When they come home after their wedding, a little drunk, a lot in love, Bellamy still tugs on his shoes and nearly breaks his ankle. Only, this time, it’s not Clarke’s ridiculous roommate who doesn’t know how to take off his shoes properly.

It’s her ridiculous _husband_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love zebra-striped socks, suE ME - no wait, fight me, I don't have the money for a lawyer. Ktnxbye.


	9. Things you said that made me feel like shit & things you said when you were drunk & things you said I wish you hadn't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things you said that made me feel like shit & things you said when you were drunk & things you said I wish you hadn't.
> 
> Modern AU.
> 
> _"I don't need your help," he hisses, his head buried in his jacket and eyes shooting daggers at her. Bellamy Blake - spite, resilience and venom._
> 
> _Red turns to green, illuminates his face like the ultimate statement of irony._
> 
> _"Tough luck, you're gonna get it."_
> 
> _"I don't give a shit about you, Clarke. You left us. You left me. So don't pretend to be the mighty savior."  
>  _

"He's back at it again."

Clarke isn't even surprised when her phone rings around the closing time of Miller's bar. She's not frightened or startled, like she used to be when her phone rang in the middle of the night and all she could think of is something bad happening because she wasn't there to stop it.

No, now she just throws off her duvet, grabs her boots and sighs into the phone. "Thanks, Nate. I'll be right there."

The night is chilly, cold air clearing her sleep-dazed mind, and she bravely steps out into it, ignoring the way even the light outside her building flickers in warning.

When she gets to Miller's bar, half of the chairs already on the tables and Nathan sweeping with a sympathetic look on his face, Clarke squares her shoulders.

She _is_ brave but she isn't brave enough to face Bellamy, shoulders slumping in his flannel shirt, and fingers tracing the rim of what used to be a glass full of whiskey.

"I had to cut him off," Miller tells her and Clarke nods, mouths a _thank you_ as Bellamy slowly turns around.

He's pissed drunk for what must be the tenth time in the last month and Clarke used to feel sorry for him, but now she's just tired.

Now she just feels weighed down by all this shit that's not like him at all. Bellamy is the one who does this, picks his drunk friends up, makes sure that they drink enough water and instructs them to put one foot on the floor if they're dizzy.

And now his eyes are glassy, his movements uncoordinated and Clarke's heart breaks before she can get it to harden.

"Come on, Bell, let's get you home."

He takes one good, long look at her and scoffs. He scoffs, rolling his eyes best he can since he's drunk and turns his back to her.

"I'm not going anywhere with you, Princess." And to Miller, he adds, "You shouldn't have called her."

Yeah, because there is someone else Nathan could've called. Like hell. Bellamy made sure the rest of their friends can't stand being in the same room with him because he's going to inevitably antagonize them, Octavia is still angry with him because of his fight with Lincoln, and so Clarke is the only person Miller can call when Bellamy needs to get home.

She isn't expecting him to be grateful, but. Less sarcasm would be nice.

"He didn't have anyone else to call," she explains calmly, digging her hands deeper into her jacket pockets. It's 2am, she is wearing pajamas, a leather jacket over the ratty t-shirt and a pair of combat boots.

Who's the real wreck here? A guy who gets drunk to forget, or a girl who can't stop loving even when she's unwanted?

"So it's gonna be me or sleeping in the trash can. Your choice, Bellamy."

He makes a show of considering it, only to finally stumble off the bar stool, nearly tripping on his feet before Clarke steadies him with her hands at his waist.

There's a brief moment in which she thinks he might cave, just give up on this ridiculous spiel of hating everyone and himself in particular, but then he pushes her away, bristling.

"I don't need your help."

Miller shoots her a grateful look when she follows Bellamy out into the car park, nothing in the world at this hour except for the two of them and neon lights. 

"You gotta stop picking me up, Princess. I can get home on my own just fine."

Clarke ignores the way the nickname sends shivers down her spine, throws her back into the days of endless arguments and bad blood. So she just shoves Bellamy into the passenger seat, makes sure his belt is tied, and gets behind the wheel.

Not even her twenty four hour shift felt as long as the ride feels, Bellamy pressed up against the door like he's desperate to get as far away from her as he possibly can, messy curls and reeking of alcohol.

"Are you on some guilt trip?" he asks when she stops for a red light. Seconds feel like hours. "Doing this to fix the shit _you've_ made?"

Anger used to flare in her at the mention of how she left, three months of not replying to anyone's calls, three months of isolation during which she had to learn how to live with herself again after being unable to save Finn.

Now she's just tired again, all the fatigue catching up with her as her head bobs to the side and she sighs.

"No, Bellamy. I'm just trying to look out for you."

"I don't need your help," he hisses, his head buried in his jacket and eyes shooting daggers at her. Bellamy Blake - spite, resilience and venom.

Red turns to green, illuminates his face like the ultimate statement of irony.

"Tough luck, you're gonna get it."

"I don't give a shit about you, Clarke. You left us. You left _me_. So don't pretend to be the mighty savior."

The car comes to a skidding halt, Bellamy's head thunking against the window and eyes widening in surprise.

This is the tenth time in the last month he's gotten so drunk he couldn't get home on his own and this is the tenth time that he's broken her heart.

But this time he's also made her feel like shit because she knows that he's right, beneath all that shadowy facade of misguided anger and disgust.

Incredible, how he used to be able to make her feel like she's on top of the world and now he's reducing her to pebbles in the dirt.

"I am so fucking tired of this, Bellamy. You wanna break? Fine. Break yourself. But don't think I want to watch you doing it and don't think I won't do everything that's in my power to stop it from happening." Her knuckles ache from gripping the steering wheel and Bellamy just keeps staring at her. Twenty-eight, eighty-eight, what's the difference? She is old and tired. "Because you are worth more than this asshole you're trying to be. And now shut the fuck up and let me drive you home."

For the first time in his life, Bellamy Blake nods, sobering up instantly, and doesn't speak a word for the rest of the ride.

When they make it to his building, Bellamy doesn’t get out and Clarke doesn’t make a move to help him. Instead, they’re stuck in a loop, faint music coming from the radio and an anchor with a calming voice wishing the people of New York a good night.

Clarke hasn’t had a good night in months and she doesn’t think this’ll be the one to break the spell.

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice barely louder than a whisper. He’s not looking at her, he’s looking at his boots and Clarke – like always – can’t keep her eyes away from him. A muscle in his jaw ticks before he continues. “Finn’s death was not your fault, I thought you knew that. You couldn’t save him because no one could. You were just the doctor on duty. And I’m an asshole for trying to make you feel even guiltier.”

She doesn’t need him to tell her that. That’s what the three months were for. But it’s still nice to hear him say it.

“Thank you for putting up with me.” Bellamy shoots her a rueful smile. “I don’t say that enough, do I?”

“No, you don’t.”

She tries to ignore the way his smile makes her heart flip, even after all this time. When she left, she thought that there wouldn’t be enough room in her heart for love after all the death she was surrounded with, but. There’s something inside her that refuses to give up.

And so she tilts her head at Bellamy and honestly asks, “How are you?”

Because she’s stupid and because she’s in love. It doesn’t make sense. She doesn’t get to watch her father and her best friend die, she doesn’t get to be the one who can’t save their friend after a car accident, she doesn’t get to do all of that and still wonder if Bellamy tastes like the chocolate he used to sneak to her during long shifts.

When he chuckles, she realizes that she’s missed it. She’s missed all of them – Raven with her comebacks, Octavia with her eyerolls, Lincoln with his uncanny ability to know when one of their friends needs hot chocolate and when they need whiskey, Monty with his sarcasm, Miller with his patience – but she’s missed Bellamy the most.

“Shitty,” he answers, simple. Another rueful smile, long fingers combing through his mussed curls. “But you can see that. The truth is, I missed you. Everything went to shit while you were gone and I couldn’t – “ He bites into his lower lip, every muscle in his body strained before he sighs. “I wasn’t enough to keep us all together.”

It’s reckless, but Clarke grabs for his hand anyways, keeps it holding even when he goes still, eyeing her warily as guilt claws at her throat.

“I’m sorry I left, Bellamy.”

She would’ve been even worse if she hadn’t. She would’ve been a ruin and they’d have all jumped into the abyss trying to save her. Raven was always the stronger one, Bellamy was always the binding tissue, keeping them together even when their tempers flared.

“But I knew that I could because – they had you.” The first tears sting her eyes and she tries to blink them away, but Bellamy’s going blurry in front of her and she just hates this mess so, so much. “I knew I could leave because you could – I never should’ve left it all to you. I am sorry.”

Clarke doesn’t know who reaches for the other first, but she thinks it’s Bellamy’s hand that pulls her into his chest, his arms wrapping around her so tight she thinks her ribs might crack but it’s a good kind of pain. The kind of pain that makes her let out a nervous chuckle, pressed close enough to him to smell every drop he’s had tonight.

“You’re a mess, Clarke.” He nuzzles his nose into her cheek, warm and very Bellamy. “But so am I. And we’ll fix it.”

She lets herself look up at him, meets his softened expression and allows a little hope to trickle into the whole mess. Half of her friends won’t speak to her, the other half won’t speak to Bellamy, and she really doesn’t know where to go from here.

But Bellamy nods, flashes his 100 watt smile and yeah. They can fix it. “Together?”

“Together.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okie dokie, I basically wrote this because I'm still trying to work out that canon angst. Oops? But there's a happy ending so I'm not that horrible.


	10. Clarke helps out blind Bellamy at the airport

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I got the following prompt: “you’re blind and at the airport and you’re really stressed out, hey it turns out we have the same flight, how about u just hold my hand and i can be your eyes, mostly because i feel bad but also because you’re super cute”
> 
> *
> 
> _“Is everything alright?”_
> 
> _That gets his attention and she watches his curls bounce as he turns his head towards her. The first thing she notices are the freckles - millions of them, really, covering his nose and his cheeks. The next thing she notices are his eyes, which are cloudy._
> 
> _The stranger scoffs. “I didn’t hear what they said about the next flight to New York, I have to be on it and I’m blind. So - no. Nothing is alright.”_

“Fuck _me_.”

Clarke’s head snaps up so fast she swears something cracks in her neck. The airport waiting room is overflowing with people but somehow, she finds exactly the person who swore.

He’s sitting two seats away from her, one seat empty between them and clogged with both their stuff and Clarke’s chucks-clad feet (she believes in being comfortable in airports, sue her), and he’s -

Well, he’s scowling but he’s hot. His inky curls look like they might be really soft to the touch and where he’s leaning forward, his hands on his knees, she can see the tattoos covering the expanse of his skin.

Then he swears again and Clarke takes the remaining earbud out, inching just a little closer to the stranger.

“Is everything alright?”

That gets his attention and she watches his curls bounce as he turns his head towards her. The first thing she notices are the freckles - millions of them, really, covering his nose and his cheeks. The next thing she notices are his eyes, which are cloudy.

The stranger scoffs. “I didn’t hear what they said about the next flight to New York, I have to be on it and I’m blind. So - no. Nothing is alright.”

Clarke stifles a chuckle, moving her bag from the empty seat and sliding into it. This close, she can feel warmth radiating off him and he must notice she’s closer because he moves away just a bit.

“You’re on flight to New York?” He nods. Clarke smiles, even though he can’t see it. “Alright, let me help you out. The boarding starts in ten minutes.”

“Thank fuck,” he breathes out, one hand darting to run through his curls and mess them up even more. Then he pauses, turns towards her again and offers his hand. “Thanks. I’m Bellamy.”

“Clarke.”

“Thank you, Clarke. What gate is it?”

“C18.”

A minute passes as she eyes him worrying his lower lip, dimples in his cheeks getting more pronounced by the second.

“Could you - “ he starts, then stops, ducking his head, but Clarke pokes him.

“Do you need help finding the gate?”

Bellamy lets out a relieved breath. “Fuck yes. Thank you.”

Clarke’s not sure what it says about her that her only reason isn’t the fact that he needs help, but that’s he’s cute. And she’d sort of like his number if he’s planning to stay in New York.

Of course, she doesn’t tell him that. Instead, she takes his hand, pulling him to his feet, and tries to ignore how nice it feels to have him close by in the crowd. He looks a little dazed, which - she probably wouldn’t be comfortable with not seeing in an airport, but he’s braving through.

When they’re in the plane, luck has it that they’re seated next to each other and he lets her have his seat. “I’m not gonna be watching out of the window any time soon, huh?”

Bellamy Blake is a writer whose sister was getting married and now he just wants to make it home. “To my shoebox apartment in Brooklyn. Or my editor’s gonna kill me.”

They talk about his books for the rest of the flight and Clarke is grateful he can’t see the stupid look on her face, since she’s absolutely struck by how interesting he is, how funny when he says that he should’ve been a mechanic rather than a writer (”It pays better and no one laughs at me when I say I write historical fiction.”), and by the time they’re standing in front of JFK in New York, air thick with smog and skyline overflowing with orange, she’s half in love with him.

“Thanks for listening to me rant,” he says, a small smile pulling on his mouth when they’re standing side by side. Clarke is tired as hell but she’s still lingering in front of a row of cabs because she really, really doesn’t want this to be the last time she sees Bellamy Blake.

Just as she’s about to suggest getting a coffee, Bellamy beats her to it. “So, I was wondering if I could repay you by taking you out to dinner?”

“I’d be honored.”

Bellamy’s cheeks pink prettily and he ducks his head to hide a smile, at which point Clarke gives up on trying to figure this stupid crush on her own so she asks, “Are you hungry?”

He blinks at her.

“I think I still have some frozen pizza at my place. If that’s not too below you,” she adds, grinning. “You can take me out to dinner some other day.”

“I’d actually love that.”

A couple hours later, when they’re pressed against each other on her couch and glowing, Bellamy starts laughing.

“What is it?”

His skin is searing hot against hers and she feels the deep rumble of his laughter vibrating across it. “No, nothing, just - it’s ironic, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“Well,” he smiles slyly, “this was definitely love at first sight. Except - you know, I’m blind.”

And that pretty much sets the tone for the rest of their relationship.


	11. Breaking & Baking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I got these prompts: "I read your bellarke stories and they were amazing! so I ran and found some prompts that you do not have to use at all omg i just got excited... 1."You’re baking cookies in the communal kitchen at 3am and I’m angry but also really hungry"| 2. “You broke into my apartment drunk thinking it was your friend’s house and I should call the cops but my cat kinda likes you so we’re good” "
> 
> and of course, I told to myself - why not just do both?
> 
> Here is the result!

Okay, so Clarke Griffin is willing to admit that the first time she met Bellamy Blake wasn’t exactly the most usual one. She’s a big person so she’s going to be honest.

It’s a Friday night and she’s just wrapping her lips around a bottle of apple wine cooler when she sees someone entering through her window.

And really, she should be afraid, except - the guy (it was very obviously a guy; lanky limbs and trouble with getting over the edge) manages to squeeze himself through the tiny thing, only to fall face-first on her floor.

“Should I call cops or ambulance?”

The guy twitches but doesn’t make a sound. It might be the wine coolers or just the fact that universe is huge so it obviously knows what it means to be absurd, but Clarke really can’t find it in herself to be afraid.

“Calypso, go check if he’s dead,” she tells her cat, the orange tabby cat Wells and she saved when they were thirteen and now, six years later, she’s still kicking and wailing and scratching them whenever she gets the chance. Clarke can’t believe that she’s actually breaking the dorm’s rules for someone so ungrateful.

However, when she approaches the guy, nudges his shoulder with her paw, Clarke is surprised to see that Calypso doesn’t make a move to scratch him.

Instead, she curls up right next to him, her fur melting into his curls, and Clarke’s getting a feeling that her life is becoming the Twilight Zone.

“Dude!” she calls, too lazy to move off her couch. “Who the fuck are you?”

Raven would tell her to get a baseball bat, Wells would tell her to call the cops, but Clarke just keeps shouting at him until he finally stirs and lifts his head from her floor.

He’s actually very pretty. It’s not a thing she says lightly, especially about guys, but this one is. His face is soft somehow, millions of freckles on tan skin, and there are dimples in his cheeks.

He’s also very drunk, so there’s that.

“Who are you and where’s Miller?”

“Who’s Miller?” Clarke asks in response, glaring at Calypso for still sticking by the stranger rather than returning to give support to her owner.

The guy blinks at her. “This is Miller’s apartment.”

“I don’t know who Miller is. I’m Clarke. And that’s,” she adds when the guy starts petting her cat and the traitor purrs, “Calypso.”

He grins. “Atlas’ daughter, the nymph. Cool.”

“Actually - just a diner my friend and I used to visit. But sure. The nymph, definitely the nymph.”

Only when he gets up to seated, Calypso jumping in his lap immediately and shedding her fur all over his plaid shirt, Clarke remembers that he hasn’t told her his name yet.

“And who are you?”

“Bellamy. Miller’s friend. We have PoliSci together.”

The name seems familiar and Clarke takes PoliSci elective, so. “Wait, Nate Miller?”

Bellamy grins. “The one and only.”

“Yeah, no, he’s down the hall.”

Calypso hisses when Bellamy gently shoos her from his lap and getting up must be an effort for him, but he still approaches the window ledge. He takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders, as if mentally preparing himself for something, and it’s not until he lifts a leg onto the ledge that Clarke realizes what he’s doing and nearly spits out the apple cooler.

“Are you insane? What the fuck are you doing?”

Bellamy looks at her like she’s the one whose sanity should be questioned right now and deadpans, “Going to see Miller.”

“Sure, you _could_ go out through the window, but. You could also use the door?”

That must have never crossed his mind because he beams at her, nodding fervently. “You’re wise. We should be friends.”

With that, he closes the door on his way out and Clarke keeps staring at Calypso the same way you stare at the camera in the Office.

Fuck wine coolers, fuck her life and fuck Calypso, too.

 

 

*

 

She doesn’t see Bellamy again until two weeks later, Friday again, only this time it’s 3am and she’s trying her best to fall asleep but there’s banging coming from the communal kitchen.

So, obviously, she gets dressed and goes exploring, ready to fight whomever she needs to fucking fight to get them to stop.

She should’ve foreseen that it’d be Bellamy - this time in a sweater and sober - who is banging with pots and pans, and swearing under his breath.

“Is this a thing for you?” she asks, leaning on the doorway. “Breaking into people’s apartments, cooking at 3am?”

Bellamy frowns at her after the initial shock wears off, gives her an once-over and smirks when he sees her pink bunny pajamas, which - she’s a sleep-deprived pre-med major and she gets to wear whatever the fuck she wants to, thank you very much.

“First of all, I am not cooking. I am _baking_ ,” he emphasizes like she’s the ridiculous one here. “And no, it’s not a thing for me.”

“So what’re you baking?”

He scowls at her. “Cookies.”

“At 3am?”

“At 3am,” he confirms, serious and squaring his shoulders like she’s seen him do when he tried to go out through her window. He’s a drama queen, that much is obvious, especially after he can’t find the flour and slumps on the chair, sighing. “Death is near.”

There are two things Clarke can do:

The first one is - turn around and get the hell out of here before Bellamy starts a fire and she gets blamed for it.

The second one is - help him because he’s cute, endearingly lost and her stomach is two seconds from growling.

“I’m gonna help you.”

Bellamy cheers up at that, looking at her with disbelief as she opens the cupboard containing flour and sugar, plops it all onto the counter.

“Why?”

“Because my life isn’t making any sense anymore. And I’m hungry.”

They work with each other for a few minutes, Clarke stirring up the batter and Bellamy pre-heating the oven, and then Bellamy asks -

“How’s Calypso?”

Clarke shoots him a glare. “Traitorous. How’s Miller?”

She actually saw him the other day and he apologized for not choosing his friends more wisely, but. Okay, she Facebook-stalked Bellamy. He’s a history major, writes for this classics zine, posts really stupid history puns and he doesn’t look like he’d be a bad friend.

If Clarke were a bigger person, she’d admit that she’s been hoping to see Bellamy.

But she’s not, and so she just scowls at him as he grins.

“Good. He told me I should apologize for breaking into your apartment. So, I’m sorry.”

He actually looks sheepish as he says that, averting his gaze a little and Clarke is an adult so she dips her finger into the batter and pokes him in the cheek.

“What-”

Then she gets a spoon and flings it right into his chest. “Apology accepted.”

Bellamy blinks at her for a second or two, completely confused, and Clarke feels a shiver of thrill running through her body when he nods and turns around.

However, when he grabs the bag of flour, she stops dead in her tracks.

“No! No, you wouldn’t dare!”

Bellamy grins in the face of her misery. “Wanna bet?”

“I just smudged a little batter on your cheek, this is - “ she stops short when Bellamy approaches her, close enough for her nose to brush against his chin and then everything goes white.

There’s fucking flour everywhere, even on her eyelashes and Bellamy is still standing too close, still grinning like a cat that got the canary.

Honestly, Clarke can’t even find it in herself to be mad. Instead, she laughs, laughs at the irony and laughs at herself - standing in the middle of the kitchen at 3am, covered in flour.

She laughs as Bellamy watches her with a curious look, laughs until she notices the smudge of batter that’s trickled into his dimple.

After that, she doesn’t feel much like laughing. “You’ve got some batter there.” Bellamy tries to wipe it off. “Here, let me.”

The batter is sweet and perfect for cookies when she licks it off her finger, aware of Bellamy watching her every move. Time suspends between the two of them, air suddenly feeling with so much tension that it’s only a matter of time before something happens.

Something, anything, because 3 am is the time and the place in which impossible things forget that they are impossible and choose to happen.

Just like Clarke chooses to stand on the tips of her toes, reaching up to Bellamy’s lips and holding on to his shoulders as he watches, dazed. His eyes flick to her lips and she closes the distance between them, soft and impossible until he groans and she becomes desperate for more.

He deepens the kiss when her fingers tangle into his curls, and she wraps her legs around his waist as he hoists her up on the counter, flour and sugar spilling everywhere.

Bellamy tastes like cinnamon and coffee, kisses just like he acts - stubborn and sure and like he wants to do everything at once but there’s never enough time.

It leaves Clarke breathless when he finally pulls away, only to rest his forehead against hers, eyes closed and lips in a small smile.

“You should go out with me,” she breathes out.

Bellamy smiles, a little incredulous, and laces their fingers together on the tops of her thighs. “I’d love that.”

“I’m definitely not asking you on a date because I like you,” she adds, trying to keep her cool even when there are butterflies stirring in her stomach every time Bellamy smiles at her.

“Oh, no? Then why?”

“It’s just because my cat misses you.”

He laughs at that, loud and full-bellied, making her feel warm and fuzzy even though he dropped flour on her head just five minutes earlier.

“Well, if it’s for Calypso.”

“Definitely for Calypso,” Clarke confirms, pulling him in for another kiss.

The next morning, it’s Bellamy on who Calypso chooses to curl up and this time, Clarke doesn’t even have the heart to call her cat a traitor. The tabby obviously has a good taste.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish I could say I was drunk when I wrote this, but. No, no, I wasn't.


	12. Bellamy sings at a bar in the next town over and no one knows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy has been singing at a somewhat small bar in the next town over so no one knows that he does this when its open mic night. Clarke goes to this bar and realizes Bell is singing. He doesn't notice her... Nor does he notice her when she keeps coming back and sitting in the back.
> 
> Featuring: childhood friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got the prompt, loved the prompt, wrote the prompt! Thank you! 
> 
> I'm not saying you should listen to Delta Rae - Run while you're reading this but you totally should.

When Clarke thinks of Bellamy Blake, she thinks of being sixteen and on top of the world, sitting with Octavia in the bed of his truck, only clusters of stars and miles of road around them.

She thinks of fond annoyance in his gaze, the hidden softness that crept into his features when he thought no one could see him.

What Clarke _doesn’t_ think of is in the next town over, and a man with messy curls who sings like his soul is trying to break free from the shackles.

Clarke is barely able to tear her gaze away from him, transfixed as he closes his eyes and curls a hand around the microphone. It is Bellamy, of course, she’d know his face anywhere – it might as well be etched into her eyelids for how well she knows every curve, every line – but there is something different about him.

There is something about his presence now that commands the whole world to stop and stare.

So Clarke stays, the car keys of her old Volvo heavy in her pocket, and she finds a booth where he won’t see her. Hunched over her beer, she keeps looking at him, trying to reconcile this Bellamy – sadness in his voice, almost ethereal under the soft yellow light – with the one who greeted her two months ago with a scoff, bitter and ruined and out of control.

“He’s good, isn’t he?”

Clarke shifts her attention to the waitress replacing her empty glass with a new, full one. She’s not driving home tonight, Raven is probably going to sigh over her steering wheel while coming to pick her up, but it’s not her fault.

“He is,” Clarke agrees, condensation sliding down her fingertips. It’s summer, sweltering hot, but she’s still wearing a plaid shirt. She wonders if Bellamy knows it’s one of his, just another souvenir from a time when they were more than enemies. “Does he come here often?”

“Oh, yeah. He’s here every Thursday. That’s when we have open mic nights.” A beat of silence and then the waitress laughs. She’s pretty in the same way Clarke is – soft curves, nice smile. “He _is_ hot, I’ll give him that. But he’s bad luck. Don’t bother.”

“Oh, is he?”

The waitress nods, sympathy in her eyes when she flashes Clarke a quick look. “He’s a boy born with a broken heart. You know how they are.”

And Clarke smiles into her beer ruefully because she does know. Bellamy Blake really was born with a broken heart. Maybe it’s because his heart has always known that there is too much love in it, and it decided to burst at the seams before overflowing.

 

*

 

It wasn’t always like this.

Once, they were a group of friends who held their feet in each other’s laps, who threatened to fight the world if it crossed only one of them. Bellamy, the older, the more rational one. Knuckles always scraped from a fight, hard edges that could cut your skin and soft hands that could heal it. Pure feeling, pure heart.   
Clarke, who was always too smart and too wild for her own good, as he told her. Princess trapped in her ivory tower. At first, he’d tell her that to rile her up. Later, he’d tell it with sadness because he knew it to be true.  
Octavia. Clarke could swear Octavia’s skin was blue and purple in patches where her heart beat too hard against her ribs. Desperate to live.

And there were others, Monty and Jasper, Raven, even Wells. But they came and went. It was only the Blakes and Clarke who’d find each other in the darkest hour of night, make a home out of their bodies and hold each other so tight that no tide could drag them away.

Now, it’s different. Now they’re not sixteen and eighteen anymore. Now they’re all nearly thirty and all of their innocence is lost. There are no truck rides anymore, no more running in the fields and screaming at the top of their lungs because they’ve got shit to say and the world is going to have to listen to them.

Now it’s Clarke teaching art in the local high school, Bellamy taking care of his mother’s farm, Octavia running away and never stopping (“Anywhere to get away from this godforsaken town.”), and Raven who is still a spitfire, still has flames in her chest that keep her warm even when the nights are cold.

They hardly recognize each other anymore. And the nickname, Princess, falls from Bellamy’s lips so easily, full of venom, whenever Clarke is near.

“Look at the princess, here to reclaim her castle.”

And to think that they used to love each other violently and clumsily, the way only kids manage, without pause and without reservations. All in or all out.

 

*

 

So Clarke keeps going to the bar in Polis every Thursday, sits in the back, nurses her beer and listens to Bellamy singing. It’s only then that it feels like she might know him, this man with callused hands and sharp glares that cut her skin.

He climbs onto the stage almost shyly, ducking his head because of the lights, and takes a seat in front of the mic. Some nights, he plays his guitar, too. Clarke wonders whether there are still etchings of their initials on the strap, the ones they made before she left for college.

“You’re gonna do great,” he assured her that night. It was just the two of them, in the backyard of his mom’s home. Aurora Blake didn’t die until Clarke was in her sophomore year and when she came back, Bellamy wasn’t Bellamy anymore.

But that night when he placed his guitar across his lap and Clarke put her hands on it, he was still young and smiled like the world was his for the taking.

“You think so, Bell?” She was young, too, her cheeks were red and her hair wasn’t tied in a braid. No, it was only tan skin and wild mess of hair falling down her shoulders, too young to care what she looked like.

In Bellamy’s eyes she always looked like heaven, so nothing else quite mattered.

“I know so, Clarke.”

She gave him her switchblade and he carved _C.G. & B. B._ into the strap, slung it over his shoulder with a victorious smile. “See, now we’re forever.”

“I thought we were always going to be forever,” she teased, lifting his hand so she could fit herself in the crook of his body. Bellamy – torn up jeans, cigarette stuck behind his ear, smile that could light up their whole town.

And he kissed her like he knew it was the last time. That night, he kissed her like he knew that they’d been fooling themselves because kids like them, no matter how invincible they felt, they were always destined to fall down and apart.

But she believed him and so she kissed him back.

Now she leaves before he’s done singing so he wouldn’t see her. There might be bad blood between them but there’s a reason why he keeps this a secret and she’s not going to be the one to let him down.

 

*

 

One night, Clarke is late to leave.

It’s then that Bellamy sees her, coming down from the stage and into the crowd that claps him on the back. For a second, he looks in her direction without really seeing and Clarke’s stomach plummets. Then he notices her, because her hair is spilling over her shoulders and it’s been a long fucking day.

She sees it dawn on him, sees him moving faster through the crowd until he’s at her table, towering over her and frowning.

“What the hell are _you_ doing here?”

She motions towards her beer. “Drinking.”

A muscle in his jaw twitches as he slides into the seat across from her, eyeing her like he’s going to fight her any second now.

“You’re an asshole, you know that?”

Clarke grins. “So I’ve been told.”

“How long have you been coming here?”

“A month? Two?”

“So you’ve – “ he swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. She still wants to mark his skin as hers. Some things never change and she digs her fingertips deeper into her seat. “You’ve known about this all along?”

He must be thinking of every single time they’ve seen each other in the town and she didn’t mention anything. The grocery store, where he only nodded at her. The bookshop, where he said “Princess” and walked out as soon as she came in. Even the diner, where they sat next to each other for an hour, without exchanging a word.

“Yeah, I have.”

His face is almost artwork, different expressions and emotions flashing across it in span of seconds. She used to draw him so, so much, and he laughed at her for it (“There are more important things you could draw, Clarke.” A nudge to his ribs. “Shut up. _You’re_ my important thing.”) but his freckles still stayed constellations and his curls still looked like a storm brewed inside him.

Finally, he huffs and slumps forward. “You should’ve told me.”

“I thought you’d be angry.”

Bellamy flashes her a rueful smile and reaches her for her hand that’s been lying on the tabletop. His hand is warm and his skin is rough, but his touch still sends a shiver down Clarke’s spine.

“I’ve been trying to be angry at you, Clarke, but it’s just not working.”

He looks almost pissed off by that and she can’t help but to laugh, a nervous chuckle rolling over her lips and dissipating in the air between them. There’s too much of it, he’s not close enough and every time she sees him, it’s like a second nature to her to want to curl up next to him.

It’s Bellamy – of course she loves him. She doesn’t know who she’d be if she didn’t love him.

“I’m sorry for leaving and never coming back. It’s just – I missed you. It’d be worse to have you and then lose you, over and over again.” She inhales sharply, forcing back the tears stinging at her eyes. She was young, she was afraid. “But I’m not leaving again. Arkadia is my home. You are – “

He waits for her, eyes wide and so hopeful it nearly breaks her heart. He might be hard edges now, but he’s still Bellamy. There’s still so much good in him and she still wants him more than breathing air. It’s inevitable. Bellamy is inevitable for her.

“ _You_ are my home.”

His fingers go tighter around hers and she turns her hand, laces them together. The waitress was right – he’s a boy born with a broken heart.

But that’s just fine because Clarke’s got a broken heart, too, and maybe they can save each other. Maybe the two of them together is all it takes.

When they’re in the parking lot, his hair is full of pink neon announcing open mic night and she thinks of his voice, like chocolate, sticking to her skin even when he’s saying nothing.

He’s just looking at her, standing in front of her and every inch of his skin radiates heat. It’s summer, it’s warm enough, but Clarke thinks she’s been freezing for a very long time.

“I know it’s been years and I understand if you can’t do this, Bellamy, but I – I need you to know that I still care, that you’re still my best friend.” The one who held her hand when her dad was in the hospital, the one who held her hair when she got drunk and pathetic because he died, the one who laughed with her and cried with her and –

“And I love you. It’s just that. I love you. You can be angry, you can shout at me, but I’ll still love you.”

She’s not even afraid of what he’s going to say anymore. It’s just something that she has to say, even if she’s shouting into the wind.

The blank mask on Bellamy’s face falls, leaving his expression open and raw. If she touched his cheek now, brushed her thumb across the scar above his lip like she used to, the whole world would go up in flames.

“You’ve been gone for ten years.”

Clarke nods. His shirt is soft to touch when she curls a hand in it on his waist.

She sees every last bit of his resolve crack, vanish into thin air when he smiles at her and tucks a stray curl behind her ear. For a second, under the headlights of a passing car, he looks eighteen again.

“I have a question.”

Bellamy raises his eyebrows, his smile turning to crooked and irresistible. He’s a smug asshole, she nearly forgot that about him.

“Is that the same guitar strap you had when we were younger?”

It takes him a while to understand what she’s asking and when he does, he laughs. He laughs loud like a roar, startling a man by the door, and he doesn’t stop until he winds his arms around her and crushes her into his chest.

“Yeah, it is,” he whispers into her hair, his voice vibrating on her skin. The world might as well fall apart because Clarke doesn’t care about anything else except for Bellamy holding her like she’s the best thing in his whole life and she loves him.

She loves him, she loves him, loves that ridiculous boy, that bitter man, the paradox of being both, and she stands up on the tips of her toes, watches fear cross his face when his eyes flick towards her lips.

“See, now we’re really forever,” she tells him, smiling more than she should have, but there’s a bubble of joy inside her chest that’s threatening to burst and it seeps into her skin, leaks onto his, until they’re just a flicker of light in the night.

Bellamy kisses her like he used to; all passion, like he’s been standing on the edge of a precipice and finally decided to give in. He moans into her mouth, tongue sliding over hers, and she bites into his lower lip because he was always hers and she’s not letting anyone else have him.

They’ll have to go through her first.

 

 


	13. soldier!Bellamy surprising Clarke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Octavia picks up soldier!Bellamy from the airport who has finally come home after being deployed, and they go and surprise Clarke - who thinks he won't be home for another month or two

Octavia actually greets him with a fluorescent green sign that says “WELCOME HOME, BRADBURY” and if Bellamy were any smarter, he’d turn around and leave before she can spot him.

But he’s tired and really wants to come home to his two favorite people, Octavia and Clarke, so he just waves at her.

By the time he makes it through the crowd, she’s bouncing on the balls of her feet and the sign clatters to the floor when she tackles him into a bear hug. Octavia doesn’t believe in half-assing hugs and Bellamy thinks his ribs are probably gonna crack.

(That, or his eardrums are going to be pierced because she’s squealing right by his ear.)

“You’re home! You’re finally home!” she shrieks, moving away to search his face for any signs of change. When she finds none, her mouth spreads into a smug grin. “Oh, Clarke’s gonna be so pissed you didn’t tell her.”

Bellamy ruffles her hair, smirking at the green sign by their feet, and says, “God, I hope she won’t. The whole point was to surprise her.”

His and Clarke’s story is - _specific_ , to say at the very least. It all started with the blonde hurricane of a girl smashing a vase over his head (she swore it was an accident but Bellamy knew it wasn’t - no one bites their cheek that hard trying to contain a grin when it’s an accident), continued with the doctor appearing at every barbecue Bellamy’s friends made and ended with the two of them sitting on the porch of Octavia and Lincoln’s house, getting drunk, being bitter and deciding that their lives are shitty so they might as well fuck it out of their systems.

Obviously, it didn’t work. And three years later, they’ve decided to just go with it.

“I locked up all the vases, just in case.” 

“Cute, O,” he shoots back, throwing himself into her jeep. He’s got jeans now, changed in a bathroom in Amsterdam airport because he couldn’t take the stares. It wasn’t like he was in the uniform because he believed that wars should be fought - he was just doing it because the military was willing to put him through school. The crisp, starchy fabric never felt good. 

And now he’s done. Now he’s paid off his debts and he gets to come home. Indefinitely. 

Which Clarke doesn’t know. Because he’s an asshole but so is she. Really, instead of cancelling each other’s assholeishness, they just make it worse.

“And the rest of the delinquents will be in Grounders’ tonight, so you’ve got the whole afternoon to spend with Clarke,” Octavia continues, navigating the busy traffic from the airport. 

When Bellamy puts his feet up on the dash, she merely scowls, but when he tries to change the radio station playing some mindless pop tune, she swats his hand away.

“Boots I can live with,” she hisses. “But you’re not touching my music.”

 It’s all fun and games until they pull up to the house that used to be their mother’s, then became Bellamy’s and finally - Clarke’s. It’s a weird arrangement they’ve got going on, it’s messy, but so are they.

There are flowers on the porch and on the windows now, bright pink and yellow. The grass is trimmed, the fence has been painted and Bellamy smiles before he’s even aware of it. Clarke Griffin never had a home but she can make anything feel like it.

“I love what she’s done with the place,” he tells Octavia, who brushed him off when he tried to take his bag.

Octavia is quiet for a long time, enough for Bellamy to turn around and find her looking at him with a deep-set frown. He slings an arm around her shoulders, pressing her tight into his side.

“What’s up, O?”

“We missed you, big brother. It was - “ his sister bites into her lip, looks to the side like she always does when she’s struggling for words. “This one was the worst so far. I’m happy you’re here to stay.”

Octavia is rarely vocal about her feelings, she usually shows them through light punches, bear hugs, putting her feet up in a loved one’s lap, teasing and bickering, and that’s what knocks the breath out of Bellamy’s lungs.

“I missed you, too.”

This time, when she hugs him it’s like when they were young, two scared kids in a run-down home while the thunderstorm raged around them. He was afraid, too, but it was more important to keep Octavia safe.

“You know I’m proud of you, right?” he asks, whispers it into her hair, because he really is. She’s twenty-eight now, a journalist, a cluster of stories in her sleeves whenever she comes home from a faraway land, brave as she always was. “You’re still a kid with scraped knees who fell off the monkey bars, but.”

For that, he gets a teary-eyed punch in the shoulder as Octavia glares at him. “I take back everything I’ve said.”

“Sure, sure.”

When she unlocks the door for him, dropping the bag to the floor and shouting “Honey, I’m home!” up the staircase, Bellamy stays frozen in the doorway.

It’s different - that run-down home he remembers. It’s still the same, still smells like honey and fresh lemonade, but Clarke’s repainted the walls into light yellow, put up paintings (some of them are hers) and it’s like their two universes collided. Bellamy’s worn out leather couch. Clarke’s record player with Taylor Swift vinyls. His chipped mugs with history puns. Her blankets in every color of the spectrum.

“Octavia? Is that you?”

He hears her footsteps before he sees her and when he does, the world finally falls into place.

Clarke’s hair is messy, held up by a paintbrush. There are smudges of paint on her neck, dripping into his old, threadbare blue shirt. Must’ve been a long shift. 

Mere sight of her, standing on the bottom step with wide eyes and breath knocked out of her lungs, is enough for Bellamy to feel like his heart is about to jump out of his chest and his feet take him to her, his arms wind themselves around her body without even asking him if he wants to.

(Of course he does.)

(He’ll always want Clarke.)

“You’re - “ her voice is so quiet, warm breath against his neck as she fists her hands into the back of his shirt, pulls him so close they nearly topple over. “You’re home. What - “

She smells like strawberries and paint thinner and hospitals. She smells like a mixture between childhood, dreams and nightmares. A girl who couldn’t save herself but she’s going to save the world. 

“I got to leave early, I wanted to surprise you.”

Her eyes are a little glassy when she unburies her head from the crook of his neck, soft lips ghosting over his jaw and placing a kiss to the dimple in his chin. It’s her favorite, she told him. 

“I can’t believe you’re here.”

All the static-y Skype calls, unreliable connection and faces illuminated by screens really wore her out. Bellamy could see that, every single time. The way the screen sometimes froze on her gaze, sad but trying not to show it. 

“And I’m staying.”

Nothing could prepare him for the expression of raw hope on her face. Nothing. And it breaks his heart, just like that, this girl he remembers in scrubs and sundresses and loud and vibrant and crying before he’s about to leave. Clarke. Who still wants to hope.

“I’m staying and I love you,” he repeats, tucks a stray curl behind her ear, places the lightest of kisses on her forehead. “Okay?”

Clarke smiles and Bellamy thinks - screw the world. Screw the wars. Screw everything. He can take it, as long as he gets her. 

 


	14. Soulmates - you don't know until you hear them say your name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where you don't know your soulmate(s) until you hear them speak, or hear them speak a certain word; your name, for example.
> 
> Bellamy knowing Clarke is his soulmate but refusing to use her name, calling her Princess all the time, because he doesn't want her to know. And one day, he half says her name and she feels something weird and then keeps trying to get him to say her name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The soulmate slut writes again! 
> 
> Thanks @nathanmillerz, the lovely Lucy, for enabling me!

“Bellamy!”

The hallway is crowded and people are jostling Clarke left and right. That might be due to the fact that she’s not particularly tall but what she lacks for in height, she makes up for in her determination to fight.

And she really, really wants to fight Bellamy fucking Blake who’s pretending like he can’t hear her - five feet away from her.

“Bellamy Blake!”

The thing is, she knows he can hear her. Every time she calls his name, he flinches but keeps going. She sees his messy curls bobbing and if he were any closer, she’d tell him not to give her shit for her height when he can’t even get a  _hairbrush_.

Clarke shoves away a guy who seems like an annoying frat boy and finally - finally - stumbles onto Bellamy, not caring if they fall down.

He turns around in a beat, hands pressing at her waist to keep her steady, and smirking. “I told you you’re too tiny for big crowds.”

Clarke shoots him a glare, gathering her books before they spill all over the floor. She hates pre-med, she hates university, and being a stripper seems like a decent career choice.

She also hates that smug asshole grinning at her just because he’s slightly taller than her.

“Don’t mess with me, Blake.”

“What are you gonna do, Princess?” He scoffs. “Bite my ankles?”

Clarke inhales sharply, clinging onto her sanity - the same one that’s dangling on the last thread now.

The thing is - she doesn’t know what Bellamy’s problem is. She was nice to him when they first met, they never really fought about anything (they bicker, but that doesn't count), they agree about so many things, have fun and he still avoids her like the plague.

Still, she’s here because she needs him to come to Raven’s birthday party. Nothing else. So she sighs, rummaging through her bag until she can come up with a crumpled invite Jasper made. He’s super into Photoshop and graphic design these days.

“You shouldn’t have avoided me,” she tells him, trying to stare him down even though he’s distractingly pretty. “I’m just passing the invite to Raven’s birthday party. It’s this Saturday, you don’t have to bring gifts, just booze.”

The gaze in his eyes turns much softer after the initial shock wears off and it’s like they’re suddenly suspended in time. He isn’t even glaring or scoffing at her. Hell yeah, it’s weird.

“Thank you, Cl-  _ahem_.”

Something stirs in her chest when he nearly says her name and he cuts himself off, startling like a newborn fawn. For a second, they just stare at each other.

But it can’t be.

“Cl _ahem_?” she asks, trying for nonchalant even though shivers are still running down her spine and it’s - different.

Bellamy’s hand darts to his hair, long fingers disheveling the messy curls even further. It’s like someone spilled ink all over them, leaving it to drip and form makeshift constellations on his cheeks.

“Thank you,” he repeats, even though he’s averting his gaze and the invite is ridiculously small in his hands. “I’ll be there.”

“Yeah, just, Bellamy - “

Another flinch and then he squares his shoulders. “I gotta go.”

Clarke’s left standing alone in the middle of the hallway like it’s nothing at all. Like Bellamy just didn’t make something flutter in her chest, somewhere disconcertingly close to her heart. 

He’s not her soulmate, obviously. He can’t be. Soulmates happen to other people, people with kind voices who know how to pronounce each other’s names. Who want to do it.

And Bellamy Blake wants nothing to do with Clarke Griffin.

 

*

The thing about soulmates is that you don’t know who they are until they say your name. It’s a pretty sound system, as far as Clarke is concerned. However, not everyone gets them and they’re more of an exception to the rule than the rule itself.

On a planet with seven billion people, it’s hard to imagine that just one person is going to say your name right. It’s hard to imagine that they’re made for you in a way that’s going to complete you whole.

After all, not even Clarke’s parents were soulmates but they worked pretty well. There are cases of soulmates who couldn’t be together, who hurt each other even more because they have been given a morbid right to. 

But Clarke still can’t stop thinking about Bellamy’s strangled voice, her name half-said, and the feeling like there would be so much more if he just let himself finish it.

“So you’re just going to annoy the fuck out of him until he says your name?” Raven asks, sitting on the couch and balancing a beer can on her stomach. She’s not impressed. 

Clarke grins. “Basically. It’s a matter of principle.”

“Good luck with that. My money’s on you, but Blake’s gonna be tough to crack.”

“Well, if anyone can do it, I can.”

Raven lifts her can in Clarke’s direction. “Here’s to you, Griffin.”

 

*

The first try is on Tuesday. They have Art History together and Clarke accidentally slams into Bellamy’s desk after the lecture, sending his travel mug and his books clattering to the floor.

“What the fuck?”

He looks more confused than pissed off and she stays behind to help him clean up, feeling vaguely guilty. And he doesn’t say her name, not even when she wipes off a coffee smudge from his cheek, feeling his skin burn up beneath her fingertips.

 

*

On Thursday evening, Clarke takes all the old X Files DVDs she got when she was a kid, gets a whole lot of Chinese takeout and pounds on Bellamy’s door. 

His eyes are wide behind his glasses and he’s wearing nothing but sweatpants, miles of tan skin wherever she looks, making her duck her head into her scarf to stop him from seeing her flushed cheeks.

Thankfully, he’s too bewildered to even notice it. “Cl-” 

She’s nearly hopeful when he starts, only to see him puffing up his cheeks and moving away to let her in with furrowed brow. 

“Sorry, were you in the middle of something?”

His chuckle is deep, too close to her body and she hears the lock popping into place. Bellamy’s apartment looks just like him - coffee mugs all over the place, bad history puns on them, stacks of books cluttering every inch of free space in the living room and a tin can of cookies on the table.

Yeah, that’s Bellamy alright, and the sight of it warms her heart.

“Nah, don’t worry about it.”

He looks like he just got out of bed, especially with his thick frames sliding down his nose and her hand darts to return them into place. Bellamy is oddly endearing like this, in ratty sweatpants, mismatched purple socks and with his glasses. 

“You keep trying to hide the dork in you,” she tells him, sticking her traitorous hand back into her pocket, “but he really shines through.”

They’re not soft people, she and Bellamy. They fought to get to who they are now, both of them know loss intimately and their skin might be purple from the bruises life gave them, but. He looks at her and he doesn’t have to say anything. She can _feel_ he’s her soulmate.

“Why won’t you say my name?”

The question tumbles over her lips, breaks free and she steps back, watches the blank mask on his face fall and shatter on the ground. All that’s left is fear. 

Bellamy inhales, exhales, pinches the bridge of his nose and finally falls to his couch. “Because I know what happens when you say  _mine_.”

“So?”

He huffs, like he’s just tolerating a kid’s temper tantrum. “So we’re probably soulmates. And I can’t do that right now.”

Clarke unwinds her scarf slowly, sets the DVDs down and joins him on the couch, careful to give him enough space. He’s been through a lot and that’s what he needs right now.

“That’s fine. I don’t believe in that bullshit anyways.” When his eyes flick to her, Clarke shrugs. “Relationships work because people  _want_  them to, because they do their best. Not because people belong to people.”

 

His voice is tiny and she imagines a much younger Bellamy, the one who was still struggling to find his strength. It should make her smile but it only makes her want to hug him closer.   
“People  _never_  belong to people. No one has the right - no, not even soulmates.”

Clarke smiles at him and reaches for his hand. For a second he freezes when she trails her fingertip over his lifeline. Her grandma would say he’s going to live a good, long life. 

“I just want you to say it. I want to feel what you felt.”

“Are you sure?”

She nods, completely unprepared as he laces their fingers together and says in a clear, loud voice, “Clarke.”

It’s enough to take her breath away as her lungs move in her chest, as her heart shifts to accommodate him, his presence next to her. And it’s different, but it’s not anything she didn’t know already. It’s just warmth, the same one she feels sitting next to him in the lecture or splayed on the grass in the quad, when he teases her by pulling on her ponytail.

It’s Bellamy.

It’s just Bellamy.

And it’s  _all_  Bellamy. 

“Oh,” she whispers, her heart still squeezing painfully in her chest. It’s not bad pain, it’s just _something else_. “Oh, so that’s why.”

Because now she wants him close, now nothing can stop the tide of her feelings for this ridiculous, strong, brave boy looking at her like she’s a fucking hurricane that’s going to rip him to pieces.

“Yeah.  _That’s_  why. And I - “

“You can’t.”

He nods, curt. “It’s not fair. It’s cheating.”

This time, she laughs because - out of all people - only Bellamy would think it’s cheating to have a soulmate. And in a way, he’s right.

“Listen,” she starts, drawing closer to him until her knees are pressing into his thigh. Now he just looks tired, hopeful in spite of knowing that he shouldn’t be. “I brought the X Files and takeout. Are you in or are you out?”

“Do you think I’d miss a chance to see Scully rip Mulder apart?” He scoffs. “Yeah, no.”

“Didn’t think so,” Clarke shoots back, reaching for the bag and settling closer to him. It takes him a moment but he winds an arm around her waist, tucks her into his side.

It’s only when Mulder falls into a trap and Scully gets him out that Clarke says, “And for the record, I’ve liked you ever since you defeated me in beer pong sophomore year.”

His laugh is a bright thing, a rare thing, and she looks at him - only to find that he’s already looking at her. It’s with fond annoyance and she thinks she can settle for that, especially when he presses a kiss to the top of her head.

“Beer pong, huh?”

“Beer pong,” she confirms. “And you didn’t say my name until now. In retrospect, I probably should have - “

His warm lips on hers cut her off and Clarke laughs into the kiss, angles her head to deepen it and reaches for every part of him she can touch. It’s weird, it’s ridiculous, but he’s Bellamy and kissing him feels like a small victory.

“Alright, Clarke Griffin,” he whispers, warm breath fanning across her cheek when he leaves her lips swollen and her heart no better, “do you want to go on a date with me?”

“I hate you.”

“I’m your soulmate. You definitely don’t.” He looks smug, the jerk. Honestly, it’s a wonder she hasn’t realized it sooner.

“It is with a heavy heart that I must say - yes, you shitweasel. Yes, I want to go on a date with you.”

 

*

Three days later, at Raven’s birthday bash, she climbs on the staircase railing, calling for him.

“You either say my name or I’m jumping!”

On the couch, she’s jumping on the couch because it’s right there on the other side and Clarke might be brave, but she’s not brave enough to risk breaking her legs.

Bellamy shakes his head, beaming at her.

“We’re dating, Clarke!”

Yeah, they might be, but the novelty of having him say her name will never wear off.

 

 


	15. Bellamy in a crop top

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy in a crop top!
> 
> Yes, you read that right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just a girl who has weird kinks. But I take comfort in knowing that I'm not the only one. 
> 
> Shame me all you want. I regret nothing.

If Clarke, for any reason that might be, had to assemble a list of her male friends most likely to wear a crop top, let’s just say that Bellamy Blake wouldn’t be at the top.

But, as fate would have it, it’s exactly Bellamy – twenty seven years old, the mother hen of the group, pockets always stocked with Advil and tissues – who greets her in a tight-fitting pink crop top when she comes home after a long shift.

At first she barely notices it, throwing open the doors, jokingly calling out “Honey, I’m home” and dropping the keys in the bowl with a clatter. They’ve been roommates for two years now, ever since it became clear that both of their leases were running out and it was only practical that they move in together.

Bellamy’s nowhere to be seen and Clarke figures he’s probably holed up in his room again, devouring history documentaries like the nerd he is, so she just flops face-first on the couch and decides that she’s not going to move unless there’s an imminent threat to her life.

“Oh, good, you’re home. The pipe in the radiator burst so I had to call the landlord, he – “

Somewhere in the middle of his monologue Clarke looked up, and now she’s staring at his bare midriff.

Because Bellamy Blake, apparently, loves wearing pink crop tops.

It takes him a second to realize why she’s staring, a second in which he pouts – obviously not appreciative of being ignored while ranting about their landlord – and then a smile breaks on his face.

He twirls around for her, muscles rippling and making Clarke swallow hard. She’s bisexual so she’s not averse to girls in crop tops, they’re fucking hot, but this has got to be the first time she saw a guy in a crop top and wanted to straddle that naked expanse of his skin.

There’s also the matter of his abs, perfectly defined – especially when considering that he’s a _history teacher_.

“You like my look?” he asks, standing up proudly with his hands on his hips. She can see the outline of the perfect vee of his hips, bites down the urge to just jump him. Bellamy has always been hot, she’s always dealt with it, so why the hell is a crop top testing her?

“Why are you wearing a crop top?” she breathes out, pushing herself up on her hands until she can rest her chin on the back of the couch. He’s wearing a pair of sweatpants and that stupid top, too tight, too show-offy, too _everything_.

Bellamy frowns at her again. “Have you seen my abs, Clarke? Honestly. I can’t keep these babies hidden.”

And to prove his point, he pokes the muscle right below his solar plexus, skin stretching as it becomes more defined.

Heat rushes to Clarke’s cheeks and she tries to bury her face in the pillow but it’s too late because Bellamy has noticed and now he’s fucking smirking at her.

He’s _smirking_ , as if he wasn’t pretty and tempting enough already. There’s something about his smirk that made her hit on him when they first met, that look that makes it loud and clear he knows he’s hot and can’t be flustered.

Maybe she just wanted to prove him wrong.

“Is me being in a crop top _a kink_ for you, Griffin?” he asks, the cocky asshole.

Clarke groans. “I guess you’re never too old to discover new kinks.”

That gets to him a little, the tips of his ears turning pink and eyes widening slightly.

“What?” she asks, shrugging. It’s obvious that it’s getting to her. Bellamy and his stupid abs and his stupid pink crop top, the one he wears with total nonchalance. Of course he would. It’s Bellamy.

“Nothing, I just wouldn’t expect you to admit that.”

Maybe it’s getting to her a little too much but Clarke grins, feeling the heat pooling low in her belly. Once, she would’ve been annoyed, but now she’s just tired and Bellamy is so fucking pretty, so attractive with his tan skin and freckles even on his chest and –

Well, fuck, she’s just a girl. No one could expect her to have that much self-control around Bellamy Blake.

“Yeah, Bellamy. You in a crop top is definitely a kink. Can you help me out?”

He blinks at her, confusion clear on his face, and she sees his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat when he swallows.

_Get a taste of your own medicine, asshole._

“Are you – “ He clears his throat, trying to collect himself but it’s really not working. Clarke’s known him for years, she knows it’s not. “Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack.” She scoots over, pats the space next to her on the couch. “Just get over here, Blake.”

He’s there in a heartbeat and Clarke lets out a laugh when she sees how utterly _wrecked_ he looks. His pupils have gone dark and his tongue darts out to lick his lips. When her eyes flick towards it, she barely notices him moving and then his lips are on hers.

Bellamy kisses her like he does everything else – madly passionate, insistent and unyielding. He is all warm heat, tongue tracing the seam of her lips until she lets him in, moaning into his mouth and pressing her body closer to his.

His muscles ripple when she traces her hands across them, desperate, searching for something without even knowing what she’s looking for but he tugs on her lower lip, brings his hands under her ass and shifts her into his lap.

Clarke straddles the bare expanse of his skin, searing hot against her thighs, and the want nearly drives her insane. God, she’s wanted him for years but this feels like all the desire just spilled over and now she can’t see anything. It’s just Bellamy and the pink flare of the crop top in her vision.

“I fucking hate you,” she whispers against his lips, breathless. He’s smiling and she’d be smiling, too, if it weren’t for the feeling of her resolve cracking. “Fuck you and your stupid top, Be-“

He cuts her off with a kiss and then it’s fervent hands roaming again, lips chasing lips. She’s had a crush on him for the longest time and this almost feels like giving in, instead of winning. It’s like they had a bet on who’d last the longest.

But fuck, they were always weird.

Bellamy moves away to take off his crop top but Clarke stops him, her hands on his. “No.” He looks at her, a little confused, and she smirks in return. “You can leave your crop top on.”


	16. Top shelves are for tall people

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "I have this scene in my head where Clarke is a med student and the climbs on a rolly chair to get the book on the top shelf and Bell just goes "that's dangerous, princess" and she gets startled and falls and he catches her and just…"

Clarke Griffin is not a loner. Seriously, ask anyone. Wells, her oldest and best friend, will tell you that she’s the one rounding up their whole squad even when no one feels like going out. Raven will tell you that Clarke is that sort of person who seeks comfort in her friends, which is why they often end up drunkenly petting each other’s hair. Octavia might be a problem because no one can be as social as Octavia, but even she’s going to admit that Clarke is perfectly average.

So, really, Clarke is not a loner. She is not. She just prefers studying at the library after hours, preferably around three am. That’s when the world goes quiet, the lights get dimmer and air clearer. She loves that time, and she loves Ark U’s library - a giant building overlooking the lake, filled to the brim with any and every book she might need.

That’s why she’s there one Tuesday night in March, hunched over her textbooks because med school sucks and she’s too stubborn to quit now.

However, there’s a definition she thinks is going to be in her final but it’s nowhere to be found in the books she  _does_  have. That’s how she ends up on top of a rolly chair - the unused one because her chucks are covered in mud and purple ink - reaching for the top shelf and the book she desperately needs.

She’s too short, Bellamy often tells her, and if he were around - he’d be the first one to offer to get it for her. She’d shoot it down, of course, but still. It’d be kinda nice.

Clarke props herself up on the tips of her toes, reaching, reaching, until her fingertips brush the old leather binding and then - 

“That’s dangerous, Princess.”

Because it’s 3am (and no matter its perks), she’s antsy and sort of freaks out at the sudden sound of Bellamy’s voice in the library’s silence. That’s why she turns around, startled, and loses her footing.

She’s barely uttered a ‘fuck’, ready for her ass to get bruised, when she realizes that she didn’t fall.

Not exactly. 

Instead, Bellamy’s smirking down at her, his strong arms below her shoulders and knees.

Because she’s the polar opposite of socially inept, she swats at his chest immediately. “What the fuck, Bellamy! You scared the shit out of me!”

He frowns at her, messy curls and dark circles under his eyes. It’s almost endearing, how soft he seems to get every time he’s tired. Clarke just looks like a pissed off crow but not Bellamy Blake. 

No, he has to be cute and smirking half-heartedly as he shoots back, “Then don’t do dangerous shit.”

He’s still not letting go of her, making a move backward until his knees hit the back of the table. His shirt smells like lemon-scented laundry detergent, the cheap one - but also the one that reminds every kid of their childhood, and she blames her fatigue and the late hour for leaning her head on his chest.

“Who’d you catch if I didn’t do dangerous shit?” she asks, voice softer all of a sudden. Her heartbeat is still loud, rapid, but she’s also very tired and Bellamy has good pillow potential. 

He chuckles into her hair, tightens his hold. “You’re right. Good thing you’re clumsy.” A beat of silence and then, much more serious, “You could’ve gotten hurt, though.”

“I know, Bell. I promise I won’t do it anymore.”

Clarke forgets sometimes that he’s much more than he lets on. He’s not just sarcasm, coffee and long rants about history. He’s also the mom of their friend group, a great big brother, a best friend who can pick up on even the slightest change in the tone of her voice. 

Bellamy is an awesome human being and Clarke should probably say that more often.

“Next time, just ask the tall people for help.”

Clarke elbows him in the ribs, frowning. “I will bite your fucking ankles. Tall asshole.”

“Come on, Princess.” He mock-pouts, mirth still dancing in his eyes. “There’s no shame in being tiny. You’re compact. Like a pocket-sized human.”

It hits her right then, how much she actually likes this. Staying late with him because he works in the library and just shakes his head fondly when she asks if he can give her the key. She likes him teasing her, she even likes the nickname when he says it.

His gaze drops to her lips when she smiles and it stays there for just a second too long, enough for Clarke to gather the courage needed to finally press her lips to the corner of his mouth.

He freezes for a moment in which her brain stays perfectly still - she’s too tired for it to spin wildly, and then he turns his head, slides a hand under her jaw and kisses her back.

Of course he tastes like coffee and Snickers he keeps in his bag at all times. Of course she moans into his mouth, recognizing the taste of familiarity. It’s not fireworks, it just feels like getting some rest after a long, cruel day.

They move away after what feels like eons and she grins at his dazed look, lips slightly parted and thoroughly kissed. It feels good to have him look like that - just because of her.

“God, I’m so glad I’m clumsy,” she says, disentangling herself from him and coming to stand on her own two feet, albeit wobbly.

Bellamy smiles at her, soft - that kind of softness reserved for puppies and tipsiness only. That one brand of soft that seems worth doing anything.

“You could’ve just said.”

“Mm,” she hums in agreement, leaning her hands on his chest to kiss him again. This one feels like a quiet Fourth of July. “But this was lucky.”

They walk out of the library, Bellamy’s arm slung around her shoulder and squeezing every second, like he’s trying to remind himself that she’s real.

And yeah - lucky. Clarke Griffin really is.

 


	17. who punches the wall and who decides to frame it?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Bellarke + "Who punches the wall and who decides to frame it?"
> 
> Both. Both is good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all already know that I'm a slut for childhood best friends, so I'm not even gonna try to explain myself.

The first time one of them punches a wall and the other one frames it they are sixteen and Clarke has just been in a car accident.

It started out stupid, as friendly teasing, Bellamy draped over her bed and saying, “What, no Cheetos for me, Princess?”

And Clarke, jaw always petulant and ready for a fight shot back, “Fine. I’ll go get your fucking Cheetos.”

It was just Cheetos, he could’ve eaten Doritos, but no – he let her get into her car, and it was his fault that an asshole T-boned her car just a minute short of the grocery store. When her mother, Abby, comes to tell him and the rest of Clarke’s friends the news, the first thing Bellamy does is – he punches the wall.

The skin on his knuckles breaks instantly, blood rushing to the minuscule wounds, and it leaves a hole in the plaster, sky blue paint chipping away into grey plaster of the house.

No one says anything for the longest time.

When they do, they’re in the hospital, Clarke is hooked to all of these machines, tubes protruding from her body and there is no blood but Bellamy can smell it all the same.

“Come on, Princess,” he begs of her, Jake’s firm hand on his shoulder. “Come on, don’t give up. You haven’t proved me wrong for so many things yet.”

They’ve always bickered, fought about things that were so unimportant, especially now that she’s black and blue and barely breathing.

It’s Octavia who curls herself up around him to protect him from the green walls of the hospital and he breathes in her flowery scented perfume so he doesn’t have to smell the antiseptic. Nothing good ever comes out of it.

Clarke wakes up after a long and stormy night, all of their friends gathered in the hallway in front of her room. When Jake and Abby come to tell them that they can see her, but not for long, Miller and Monty are curled up against each other, Raven’s bad leg is propped up on Wells’ knee and Bellamy is pacing back and forth.

“I can’t go in,” he tells them, hands shoved into his pockets. “It’s my fault. She won’t want to see me.”

It’s Abby, the stern, strict Abby Griffin, who smiles at him wearily and says, “It’s you who she asked for first.”

Clarke looks like shit, dark circles under her eyes, skin so pale it’s nearly translucent, but she smiles at them, lets herself be enveloped from all sides by their friends. They’ve been through thick and thin together, the neighborhood delinquents – as the adults had taken to calling them, and they’re gonna keep going.

But –

“This was a close call,” Raven tells Clarke, carding her fingers through Clarke’s tangled hair. Everyone’s mindful of the tubes but the heart rate monitor beeps away steadily and with every beep, it’s like a weight is lifted off Bellamy’s chest.

Clarke smiles at her first, and then she turns to look at Bellamy. “I guess someone won’t be eating Cheetos anymore.”

It takes all of his willpower not to kiss her right then and there, for still having the strength to joke around, but Bellamy contains himself, settles for just holding her hand – even when the rest of their friends are shooed away.

“I thought we lost you. I thought I lost you.”

Clarke blinks, a second too long. “What would you guys do without me? Who’d be the dad of the group, weird jokes and inept emotional support?”

They’ve long ago realized that Bellamy is definitely the mom, so why pretend? But her statement makes him feel light and giddy all the same, bringing her hand up to kiss her knuckles.

It’s then that she sees the crusted blood on his and frowns. “What happened?”

“Punched a wall.”

“You punched a wall? Why?”

Bellamy shrugs. “You were hurt.”

“Oh, Bellamy. You stupid shitweasel.”

But she says it with unbearable fondness and for the first time in the last twenty four hours, he’s happy to be alive.

A week later, when he comes over to the Griffin residence to drop off homework for Clarke, he stops dead in his tracks when he passes the spot where he punched the wall.

It’s framed now. A pink frame and a neat little plaque – his name and the date.

“What the fuck is that?” he asks when Clarke turns around to face him. She’s still in her pajamas, drinking OJ and snuggled up in her bed with a pile of books next to her.

“I framed it,” she retorts, a grin breaking out on her face. “It must’ve been a good punch.”

He spends the rest of the afternoon with her in her kingdom of light blue walls, fluffy pillows and good books. No one cares if his heart flips every time she snuggles into his side, nuzzling his neck as she gets more comfortable. No one cares. That’s just on him.

 

*

 

The second time one of them punches a wall and the other one frames it, they are eighteen and Clarke is fucking pissed.

“I don’t even get the right to be jealous, Wells!” she shouts, ripping off her corsage and throwing it in the trash. Lexa didn’t even care about the stupid pink thing to match her dress.

Just like Clarke didn’t exactly care for more than a brief hookup. Not when Bellamy was always one or two steps away from her, Gina (who is a lovely girl, Clarke does _not_ hate her) hovering next to him at all times.

“I didn’t even know they were dating,” Wells offers, leaning on the doorway. It’s 2am and he should’ve gone home with Raven, but. He’s too good of a friend and Clarke hates him for it. Just a little. Not at all.

Clarke rolls her eyes, hands him the jacket he borrowed her when they were getting out of the hall. The night is chilly but Clarke’s seething with rage that’s enough to keep her warm.

Because – she doesn’t have the right to be jealous. She doesn’t. She’s had at least a thousand chances to tell Bellamy how she feels and she didn’t take them. But it’s always been him, for her, and she figured that if he felt the same way – it’d show.

“Fuck him and his stupid freckles. Fuck him and his stupid jokes. Fuck him and asking,” with this, she starts to mimic Bellamy’s voice – too high-pitched for it to be any good, “ _Clarke, what’s wrong? What happened?_ You happened, you fuck!”

It’s almost ironical that she punches the wall right next to where she framed the damage Bellamy made two years ago, and she sinks to the floor, grasping her right hand in her left. It hurts like hell, tears are stinging her eyes and she just wants to not exist for a while.

Wells sits next to her, offers her a shoulder to cry on, and the sun rises all the same. No one cares for a girl with a broken heart.

Clarke doesn’t speak to Bellamy for the next two weeks and when she does, it’s because he appears at her doorstep just after her parents have gone off to work. The doorbell startles her and she rushes downstairs, wearing nothing but her tank top and shorts, only to see his stupid face.

“No,” she hisses, making a move to slam the door in his face. He stops her with his leg between the doorstep and the door. She pulls, he pushes, and they could go on like that forever so Clarke just sighs, lets go. “I’m not talking to you.”

Bellamy’s brow knits in frustration. “I noticed, yeah.”

“Good, so why are you here?”

“Because Raven told me.”

“Great. Leave, now.”

He smiles at her ruefully, inky curls bobbing when he ducks his head like he always does when he’s embarrassed. After ten years of friendship, the one that started when he pushed her off the monkey bars and offered his lunch to apologize, she knows all of his tells.

“I’m not dating Gina.”

She does _not_ feel relief over it. Does not. Absolutely not. It doesn’t matter, she doesn’t care. That’s exactly what she tells him, fighting to stay calm and nonchalant.

He knows she’s not, it’s almost pointless.

“Do what you want to do, Bellamy. I’m not telling you how to live your life. It’s not like I give a shit.”

There’s a glint of mischief in his eyes and he grabs her hand, brings it closer to his eyes for inspection, smirking victoriously when he notices scar tissue where she hurt it.

(There’s still a hole in her bedroom wall. Her dad laughed when she showed it to him. “You two really are in sync, huh?” It burned like hell.)

“I can see just how much you don’t care.”

Bellamy doesn’t let go of her hand. Instead, he looks in her eyes, thumb rubbing absent-minded patterns into her knuckles.

“Do you remember when we were thirteen and you just ran out into the street when you saw that labrador puppy yapping sadly? You were in your bathrobe, we were just doing homework but you ran outside, yelled at the puppy to wait for you and cried when you finally got to him.”

Clarke swallows hard because she does remember it. The puppy’s name was Max, and she had him for a total of three weeks before her dad found him a new, better home with a bigger yard.

Bellamy smiles at her, a tinge of sadness to it. Kind of like he was when she ended up in the hospital two years ago. “You turned to me and told me – Bell, everyone should have a home. Bell, I’m going to keep him. And you just kept crying, your parents didn’t know what the hell happened and there was this puppy – “

“What are you trying to say?”

He looks at her like she’s dumb, like she doesn’t get anything and he’s not impressed. “I’m trying to say that that’s when I knew I was in love with you. And that I was always going to be. It’s just who I am, now. So, Gina? Yeah, we’re friends. No one is stupid enough to want to date _me_.”

“I’d be stupid enough to date you,” Clarke presses out, in between sobs. It’s just – that fucking puppy. And Bellamy ran right out after her, nodded seriously when she told him that she wanted to keep it, came up with a plan in which the two of them would be outlaws on the run with their puppy.

His thumb caresses her cheekbone, raw expression on his face – all those freckles and all that hopeful sort of sadness that’s always been there with Bellamy, and Clarke holds onto his waist, gets up on her feet and plants a kiss on his lips.

He freezes and she laughs through tears now glistening on his cheeks. It takes him just a second to pull himself together and then he’s kissing her back, tongue tracing the seam of her lips and a hand sliding into her hair to pull her closer.

When they break apart, Bellamy leads her to his car. “I’ve got something to show you.”

It’s a pink frame, almost identical to the one that’s been in her room for the last two years, and Clarke laughs. She laughs and laughs, doesn’t really stop for the rest of the day because it’s two matching frames, two matching holes in the wall, and two matching kids who have been stupid for too long.

But it’s good because now they’re home.


	18. Superheroes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: AU where Clarke works for a secret government agency and she has powers. After a long, hard day, she comes home and just lays on the couch and just cries. Bellamy walks in on her still in her special suit. He tries comforting her and Clarke realizes that she just revealed her identity to him. but he already knew because he works in the agency as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen to Seafret - Atlantis while reading this and cry. I love you all!

Some days it doesn’t matter how many lives she can save. All that matters is how many slipped from her grasp. All that matters is how much blood has been spilled when it shouldn’t have.

Raven pats her back and Monty offers a hug, slick with sweat and empty in a way that none of them know how to fill again. They’re just people. God, they’re just people and Clarke wants to scratch at her soul because it _hurts_. It hurts to know that she can press her palm and wish tissue into binding, but she can’t save a life when it counts.

She settles for digging her fingernails into her palms, tiny crescent moons in her skin, as Kane assures them that they’ve done all they could.

“We would’ve saved Sinclair if we could. But we stopped Emerson.”

Not enough.

Not enough, when she collapses on the couch in the middle of her and Bellamy’s living room, suit still on. They made her one, fireproof. It didn’t do shit to save her heart from the flames constantly licking at it, until it became no more than veins and heartstrings, barely holding her together.

They’re just people. Raven thinks like an engine and engines think like her, Monty breathes chemistry and it’s both a blessing and a curse, and Clarke – Clarke is supposed to heal, even though the only thing she does these days is kill.

She doesn’t hear the doors opening but she hears the keys jingling in that one chipped bowl she made when she was still in college. Bellamy demanded it in the hallway, always more proud of her achievements than she has ever been.

“Clarke? Are you home?”

Her limbs feel so heavy, oh God. It feels like they’re full of lead and she couldn’t move if she tried. Even her soul is tired of fighting a losing battle. The one that must be fought, even though it’s never going to end. The old dichotomy of good versus evil. Never-ending. Painful. And they’re all in too deep to even consider why they started fighting it in the first place.

The couch shifts under her as Bellamy sits down. She smells his cologne first – musky, kind of like the woods his sister likes to go hiking in. They went once and Clarke doesn’t remember when was the last time she’d laughed as much as that day.

His voice is a thunderstorm, but a quiet rumble. The sort that you enjoy when you’re deep under the covers and you don’t have to go outside. The air crackles with electricity all the same.

“How are you holding up?”

She feels his skin against her suit, his hand running up and down her spine like it always does when she’s hurt and he doesn’t know what else to do but be there for her.

Most of the time – it’s enough.

Today it just isn’t.

“I want to stop,” she whispers into the pillow, tears stinging at her eyes. They come with bitterness in her throat, rising, rising, until she feels like she might throw up or explode, whichever comes sooner.

Some tears are easier, slipping freely.

This kind comes with pain.

She’s not sure how he pulls her up but all she knows is that she’s burying her head into the crook of his neck, breathing for the first time only to breathe him in. Bellamy, the comfort of a home. The comfort of being able to be just Clarke – the ridiculous Clarke who paints for hours and forgets about the world, only to resurface with too many paint stains and stars in her eyes.

That’s who she is for Bellamy, and it has always been enough.

But nothing is today and she fists her hands into his shirt, her body wracking with violent sobs that fight their way out of her throat, burn down her lips, smell like blood and death and destruction.

Bellamy stays quiet, presses her closer even when she fights back.

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” he repeats into her ear, petting her hair as his thumb rubs patterns into her hip. “You did good, Clarke. You did all you could do.”

He can’t know, shouldn’t know – he’s just a history teacher, Bellamy whose hands are very ordinary but he’s still extraordinary. Fuck her gift, her superpower, when he’s the one whose eyes could light up galaxies. When he’s the one who could actually do some fucking good in the world.

And then his hand slips on the slick material and Clarke freezes under his touch, realizing that she’s not in her civilian clothes. No, she’s wearing her suit and he’s not even batting an eye.

“Bellamy – “

She’s got two thousand excuses ready. Masquerade day at the office. Prank. Spilled coffee on her clothes and had to change, Raven has the weirdest shit in her locker. Weird fetish. Anything, anything, she’s got every possible excuse, two hundred ways to cover up what she’s doing.

Clarke Griffin is a graphic artist in a firm downtown. She spends her days staring at the computer with a messy bun on top of her head, she sheds her clothes as soon as she enters their apartment, likes curling up next to him and falls asleep to the tales from the Iliad or the Odyssey.

Some days she feels like Achilles, when Bellamy points out the color of her hair and her bravery. Other days, she feels like the dirt the Trojans bled on.

That’s Clarke Griffin.

Wanheda is a different person entirely and she leaves it at the door. It doesn’t matter what happened, who she saved or didn’t save. That’s Wanheda.

But today, the line is blurry and she moves away, searches his face for signs of confusion and comes up empty. It’s just raw with grief, splitting her in two in a way that can’t be good, in a way that –

“I know, okay?” he tells her, tucking a stray curl behind her ear and pulling a finger underneath her chin. “I know what happened to Sinclair and I am so fucking _sorry_.”

“You – “

“I work for Arkadia.”

She freezes again, every nerve in her body lit on fire with sudden realization. This is Bellamy. She’s met him during a trivia night in Grounders’. She made fun of his extensive knowledge of history. It’s – it’s Bellamy, her history teacher boyfriend, the love of her life, special without being able to do anything supernatural.

And now he’s looking at her with deep, dark understanding that only tells her he should probably have kill marks on his back, too, but their skin is limited and the blood they’ve spilled isn’t.

“How long have you known?” It rolls over her lips, falls into the space between them. It’s miles now, even though her chest is pressed against his.

Bellamy inhales sharply, one hand running through his hair automatically as he ducks his head. He’s always been the most vivid of all the people she’s ever met. Every move was a story, every word a poem. But he’s been lying, too.

“A week.”

“And you didn’t – “

He shakes his head.

Clarke has to admit that she understands. Ever since she’s started working for Arkadia, an agency that tries to keep people with superpowers from straying from the right path, all that she’s been told was that she couldn’t tell the people she loved. For their safety. Not for hers, God, no. She cares very little for her safety.

But imagining someone torturing Bellamy to get information about her – it’s not that she would never forgive herself. It’s that she wouldn’t keep living in a world that doesn’t have Bellamy Blake on it.

Bellamy is wringing his hands in his lap when she takes them, laces their fingers together even though every move makes her muscles scream in agony. When he looks up, his eyes are wide and hopeful, reminding her of the Bellamy she’s seen in his childhood photos.

She should have known. The boy has always tasted like tragedy.

“You should have told me.”

“I didn’t know how.”

He’s wearing his neat, beige slacks, and a white shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His hair is all mussed up, eyes drooping with fatigue. That’s how he looks every day and she hasn’t noticed.

“The first thing they teach us at Arkadia is how to keep a secret, huh?” she muses, leaning her forehead against his. He scoffs, closing his eyes and for a while, they just breathe. The air is still crackling with electricity, Bellamy’s thunderstorm, and Clarke doesn’t know what happens when they let go.

She doesn’t know how to move on from this.

But Bellamy’s heart is beating against her skin and hers is picking up the pace. Sinclair’s eyes are still open and unmoving in front of her, as Raven tries to shake him awake, as Monty begs her to let go. He’s still looking at her and she can imagine his lips moving, blaming her.

Ultimately, it is her fault.

And now not even her home is free of it.

“I can hear you thinking,” he tells her, a mirthless smile crossing his lips.

“Can you really?”

“God, _no_ ,” he breathes out. And then slower, “No, no. It’s – “ a muscle in his jaw ticks, like he’s trying to hold himself back. “It’s not good. Kane took me under his wing so I wouldn’t join Pike.”

Pike. The one who only recruited those with the kind of powers that could easily be used to harm others. People like Hannah Green, Monty’s mom, who possessed the ability to manipulate weather. People who have been through tragedies and decided to become one themselves.

Clarke squeezes Bellamy’s hand tighter, trying to coax him out of whatever that’s turned his eyes dark and glassy, like there is a room inside of him that’s all spikes and torture, and he thinks he’s deserved it.

(She still remembers the day he came home with a split lip and didn’t say anything but “Octavia” and “I deserved it”. She should have asked then.)

“Tell me,” she says, breathes it out, impossible thread connecting them that’s always been there – ever since he first smirked at her and she flipped him off – twisting. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter.”

It never would. It’s Bellamy, sitting in front of her. It’s Bellamy, the one whose skin she’s got mapped and knows one freckle from the other, in the impossible constellations across his body. It’s Bellamy and she loves him.

His eyes flick towards her, hesitant, but she doesn’t let go. Then he disentangles his right hand from her grasp and reaches for her gloves, discarded on the coffee table. There’s still blood on them. There’s still blood on them and her world is getting smaller by the minute, like the walls are closing in on her.

And then there’s Bellamy, smoothing the creases in them and rubbing his thumb over bloodstains like he doesn’t even care. When his brow furrows in concentration, though, they simply –

They vanish, bit by bit. It’s the fingers that disappear first, rough edges burning away into nothing. There and not quite in the next moment. Like someone took an eraser and decided that they have never been there in the first place, all the atoms shifting to accommodate the change.

When they’re gone, when there’s nothing left of them and it’s just Bellamy’s empty palms, flipped up in a gesture of admitting what he’s done, he looks at her and there’s a bitter smile on his lips. “I destroy everything I touch.”

A beat of silence.

“That’s literally all I can do.”

And she sees it now, his wariness when touching important things, the time they needed for him to let go, how he’s always been reserved, always an invisible brake in his heart when things would descended into chaos.

Only to find out that he is chaos itself.

God, they’re just people. They’re just people and they can’t be doing this, so Clarke reaches for him, wraps her arms around his waist and hugs him so tight she thinks they might melt into each other. Stranger things have happened but she wants to melt into him because he’s never spoken about the blood on his hands but he knows the weight.

Nothing makes more sense.

Nothing, when she presses a kiss to the underside of his jaw and he runs his fingers through her hair, infinitely gentle, like she’s breakable.

“I couldn’t save him, Bellamy. I watched Sinclair die and there wasn’t a thing I could do. What’s the point of being able to heal if I can’t do it when it counts?” She shakes her head, sobs into his shirt. “You say that you destroy everything you touch but you don’t. You really don’t. I give people hope in the first place, I’ve told him that he’d be fine, that I would fix this, but shit. I didn’t, did I?”

His breath is warm against her cheek and she thinks that he might be shaking, too. “You couldn’t save him, it was too late.”

“What sort of a fucking superhero am I, then?”

When he pulls away, he cups her face with his hands. She doesn’t know how they could ever destroy something when all they did was make a home for her.

“You remember that night when we drove out to the desert just listening to the Bangles on repeat, huh?” he asks her, palms searing hot against her cheeks. “And you wanted to kill me. You just kept saying how much you hated me and that you would’ve broken up with me if I wasn’t driving. You remember that?”

Clarke nods, smiles through tears now streaming down her cheeks. These come easier. Everything comes easier with him.

“So that’s who we are. Who we are and what we need to be survive are two very different things. You did your best today. And you’ll keep doing your best tomorrow.”

“Does it ever end?” she asks because she needs a lie. It’s never going to end, not for as long as they’re breathing, but tonight, she’d like to believe that there’ll come a day when they could get a house with a yard and white picket fence, have a dog and a kid, throw barbecue parties for their friends and laugh more than they rage.

Bellamy looks at her and he knows what she needs. He’s always known. “It does.”

Nothing is quite enough or right today, but this is, and she collapses into him. She’s fought for so long and she’ll fight tomorrow, too. But today she is Clarke Griffin. The world can wait.

 


	19. Blind Date Misunderstanding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “your friend set you up on a blind date and i happened to be eating alone so you thought you were meeting me and you were cute so i went along with it but you just got a text from said friend that they're sorry your date stood you up and now i have some explaining to do"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah, I haven't written in the longest while (some serious life shit happened, sorry, guys!) and yeah, it might be like learning how to ride a bicycle, but I've never been good at that, so.
> 
> I actually forgot where I was going with that comparison. 
> 
> Enjoy!

The most Clarke expects out of her Tuesday evening is szechuan beef noodles in her favorite Chinese place down the street and the feeling of perfect calm.

What she gets instead is a hot, flustered guy with freckles covering the most of his tan skin, rumpled shirt and the general appearance of someone who’s been running.

“Shit, I’m so sorry I’m late.”

Clarke blinks at him because - is this an alternate universe? Is this just like the Pacific Rim AUs Raven claims she absolutely does _not_ read? What is this, really?

The guy just keeps talking, trying to settle in the seat across the table from her and knocking down the napkin stand, the menu and barely managing to save Clarke’s bottle of bear. 

“I swear that this doesn’t happen at all, it’s just that Octavia called,” he shoots her a look of exasperation, like Clarke is supposed to know who that is, “and her dog got sick - I love her dog, her dog does not deserve the shit she puts her through, so we rushed to the vet and - “

Finally, he shuts up, eyes wide and panicked while Clarke just sits there, listening intently. The night can’t get any weirder and besides, he’s pretty easy on the eyes. 

“I’m talking too much, aren’t I?”

At that, she laughs. “I wouldn’t know, would I?”

The guy smiles, all pearly white teeth and dimples popping in his cheeks. Clarke is utterly unprepared to deal with this situation, honestly. It’s Tuesday, for fuck’s sake. Nothing good happens on Tuesdays.

“It is a first date so yeah, you’re right. I’m Bellamy, by the way,” he offers his hand and Clarke takes it. Warm, solid, just a little clammy. “Octavia didn’t mention - “

“It’s Clarke. Clarke Griffin.” After a second of silence, she asks, “So, how is Octavia’s dog?”

After Bellamy shoots her a grateful look, Clarke doesn’t even stop to feel bad about lying to him. Well, omitting the truth. It’s not lying if he presumed that she was here for their date.

“Totally fine, it was a false alarm.” Another one of his face-splitting grins. And then he stops for a second, looks at her - really _looks_ , for the first time in the whole haste of his arrival, and asks, “Nickelback. Thoughts?”

It’s kind of hard not to spiral into conversation with him after that. They both hate Nickelback and it progresses from that into Bellamy telling her about his recent trip to Greece and Clarke responding by relaying the tale of how she downed an entire bottle of whiskey rather than throwing it away at security on her flight back from Italy. 

And whenever they get stuck, Bellamy makes this deep-in-thought face and comes up with the weirdest shit. “So, weather is pretty good today, huh?”

“Did you actually write down the topics to fill out awkward silences?”

The skin of his neck turns deep red and Clarke probably shouldn’t find it so endearing. “Maybe?”

“Where are your index cards? Come on, I know you have them.”

Dessert replaces main course, Bellamy’s tie gets loosened and he rolls his sleeves up as Clarke leans forward, forgets about how tired she probably looks. He’s snorting into his fried ice cream and she’s poking him with a fork.

“Come on. Did you or did you not cry about the Library of Alexandria?”

“I plead the Fifth.”

“The public has a right to know! Damn it, Bellamy!”

He looks too good when he’s going for shy and pouting, and Clarke doesn’t even give a shit that she still hasn’t told him she’s not his date. 

(She’s going to hell.)

(But it’s fine if Bellamy’s gonna be there, too.)

“I might have. It’s just - all the knowledge, Clarke, come on!”

One hour later and she’s just teasing him about being a nerd who dresses up like historical characters when his phone rings. He shoots her an apologetic look and takes it.

“Hi, O. Have you eaten?”

Of course he’s a mother hen. Why wouldn’t he be a mother hen? The universe has apparently decided to throw cute, caring guys her way. Right on a Tuesday.

Clarke busies herself with scooping what’s left of her second serving of fried ice cream (that shit is the best, no doubt) when Bellamy pauses in the middle of his sentence, eyeing her warily.

“What do you mean my date couldn’t make it, O?”

Clarke’s stomach plummets. “Bellamy - “

“I’ll call you back.”

This time, when he looks at her, there’s no mirth in his eyes. Now his arms are crossed at his chest and Clarke realizes just how much she’s wanted him to like her when he frowns, almost as if he’s disappointed.

“Look, I can explain.”

He cocks an eyebrow at her. “Please do.”

“I was too surprised when you sat down and then you were actually funny so I didn’t want to - you know - “ she shrugs, realizes that she’s making a total ass out of herself, sighs. “I’m sorry, I should’ve told you. But you were so cute and I was having fun. I forgot.”

He seems to think it over and then, as if nothing happened, he shrugs, too. “Alright.”

“Alright?”

This seems too easy.

“Yeah. I had fun, too. Even though you lied.” His words are followed by a shit-eating grin.

“I don’t _lie_. I just avoid the truth sometimes.”

Bellamy blinks. Breathes in, breathes out. Bursts out laughing, full-on seal-clapping laugh, tears in the corners of his eyes.

“Is it really shitty that I’m actually happy my date didn’t show up?”

“It might be,” Clarke replies. “Good thing I’m an asshole, too.”

With that, she drops the money on the table, standing up and tugging Bellamy to do the same. If he’s surprised, he doesn’t show it, and his arm settles over her shoulders almost as if he’s had practice.

When the cool New York air hits them outside, Clarke cuddles up closer to him, nosing his shirt just a little. Her life is weird, she might as well take advantage of it.

“I’m thinking Thai for our next date,” he murmurs into her hair. “Possibly no lying.”

“Fine, but you can’t be late and just sit at a random girl’s table.”

He pouts and it’s probably going to end her. But she regrets nothing. “Aw, really?”

“Dick.”

“Kettle calling the pot black,” Bellamy replies in a sing-song voice, but doesn’t let go of her. 

He doesn’t until they’re at her front door and sort of just lingering there. It’s weird but the nice kind of weird. The sort of weird Clarke hasn’t felt with overly romantic Finn or overly confident Lexa.

The best kind of weird.

Bellamy shoves his hands into his pockets and ducks his head to hide a smile as he asks, “Pick you up tomorrow at seven?”

“Sure, I’d love that.”

As he turns to leave, she stops him with a hand on his elbow, watching his eyes widen as she props herself up on her toes to press a peck to his cheek.

“Good night, Bellamy.”

“Yeah.” His smile could light up the entire city, she’s pretty sure. “Good night, Clarke.”


	20. Corporeally Challenged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Bellamy is a real estate agent whose company is hired to try and sell The Griffin, an old inn a few hours away. He absolutely does not intend to fall for the frustrating and gorgeous ghost, Clarke, who haunts the property.

Bellamy sort of has a reputation for being able to sell the weirdest properties. He’s pretty sure he could charm the pants off of even the stingiest bastards. It’s his way of flipping the bird at the top one percent.

And then The Griffin happens.

Honestly, he’s not sure why the hell that place even exists. He’s pretty sure that inns like that one went out of style centuries ago, but it’s a challenge. And if he doesn’t back down from one thing, it’s challenges.

So he packs his shit up, goes to check out the location, and realizes that something’s not right with the place.

For starters, the doors keep shutting and when he tries to clean up around the place, he finds even more dust and cobwebs after.

It’s not until he starts arranging fresh flowers for a showing that he hears the doors slamming _again_ and that’s when he’s had it.

“What the fuck!?”

“You’re doing it wrong. Try orchids instead of daisies. They fit the vibe of the place better.”

That’s when he knows that this place is either haunted or he’s gone totally batshit. 

It turns out he’s still relatively sane when a translucent blonde girl walks in, wearing an old-style dress and a smirk.

“Bet you didn’t expect this, huh?”

She’s a ghost, obviously, but Bellamy’s not going to give her the pleasure of being scared. He can do freak out at home. So he just scoffs, waves his hand.

“Nothing I haven’t seen.”

“You’ve seriously seen ghosts?”

“You’re not a ghost. You’re just corporeally challenged.”

It turns out that her name is Clarke, she was murdered about a hundred and fifty years ago, and her favorite pasttime is annoying the hell out of him. 

She’s also gorgeous and Bellamy isn’t sure what it says about him that he develops a crush on her.

“You’ve always been fucking weird, man,” Miller tells him one night when the three of them are playing cards in the Griffin. Clarke has her feet up on the table and her poker face is one of the best he’s ever seen.

“Is that supposed to be an explanation?”

Miller shrugs. “Just ask the ghost girl.”

“He’s right, Bellamy. You’ve been very weird for the time I’ve known you.”

He’s not sure how he’s come to this. He went to school, did his homework, drank enough milk. And now his best friends is teaming up with a ghost to make fun of him.

Clarke is pretty easy-going most of the time, but she’ll get blue from time to time and that’s when she plays the jazz records previous owners left. That’s also when she leaves sad little messages on foggy windows.

All in all, it can get pretty creepy. Especially when she turns the lights on and off.

Bellamy isn’t sure how to handle it - what do you say to console someone who’s been dead for so long? - but he’s grown fond of her and her mysterious ways so he summons her with a box of chocolates. 

(She claims she can’t eat them but she can appreciate their beauty. Go figure.)

“What’s up, Clarke?”

She looks gloomy, more transparent than usually, frilly lace of her sleeves barely visible when she takes a seat next to him and stares at the chocolates longingly.

“Can you eat them for me?” she asks, instead of responding to his question. “I need to live vicariously through you.”

“If I do it, are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?”

She scrunches up her nose, too endearing for _a ghost_ , but ultimately nods. They sit in silence for a while and when Bellamy starts eating, she starts talking.

“It’s just - I saw the light.”

“The light?”

“You know,” she frowns, waving her hand about as he pops another chocolate into his mouth, “the _light_. Crossing over to the other side. Diving deep into the great unknown.”

“That’s good, right?” he asks, because he’s not sure. He’s seen a couple of ghost movies when Octavia was going through a phase and he’s pretty sure that every ghost wants to go into the light. It’s kind of a big deal.

But Clarke looks downright miserable and he reaches for her hand, only for his fingers to fall through and hit the wooden table. She smiles at him ruefully.

“It is. But it means leaving.” She worries her lower lip, averts her gaze. After a second, she adds, “It means never seeing you again.”

Bellamy’s heart shouldn’t flip at that because she’s a ghost and he wouldn’t even be able to kiss her but she tells crappy jokes, uses modern day slang inappropriately and -

He _likes_ her, okay? He knows how fucking ridiculous that is, thank you.

“We just can’t win, huh?” he offers instead of sayng something useful but Clarke laughs along, light and heavy at the same time. 

“I guess we can’t.”

“How come the light hasn’t appeared until now?”

“That’s the catch.” Another rueful smile. “I haven’t found peace until now. And it’s so strong, Bellamy, it’s _pulling_ me. I don’t think I can resist it.”

It hurts to admit that this is the only right thing to do. It hurts that Clarke has to leave because he wants her here. It’s not big, what they have, it can’t be, but sometimes it feels like it could have been, had things been different. 

Still, she’s miserable here and it doesn’t feel fair to be her tether when she needs to float away.

“I’ll miss you,” he admits, voice barely louder than a whisper.

Clarke nods and her smile reaches her eyes this time. She can’t touch him but she still tries, covering his hand with hers. 

There is absolutely nothing.

“I’m glad I met you, Bellamy Blake. Thank you for everything.”

When she fades into the air, glitter and gold and sunlight streaming into the room, it’s just like she was never here.

But Bellamy knows better than that and he smiles at the empty inn, chocolates half-eaten on the table and two inches of dust on the counter. He smiles at the room that used to be hers when he goes upstairs, opens the door for the first time.

Clarke Griffin may not have been able to live and breathe, her time cut short, but she was still here, did her damnedest to leave a mark on this world, and Bellamy Blake smiles at all the memories of her.

Years later, after The Griffin has been sold to a couple looking to turn it into a family hotel, Bellamy Blake walks down the street in the middle of the rush hour when something catches his eye. It’s just a split-second, just a glimmer of sunshine in the corner of his eye, but warmth blooms in his chest and he knows Clarke is alright.

He knows Clarke is alright and when he meets Gina Martin later that day, kindness and dry humor, appetite for the same chocolates Clarke used to like, he knows she’s out there somewhere, looking out for him. Just as he had looked out for her. 


	21. Competing Bakeries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I got a prompt: What about one where Clarke and Bellamy own competing bakeries in town.
> 
> YEP

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks @ my babe [Camille](http://cupcakeblake.tumblr.com) who let me use her url - cupcakeblake as the name of Bellamy's bakery and suggested naming Clarke's Muffin Griffin just for the kicks and because she is amazing and I love her beautiful brain.
> 
> Enjoy! :D

There is not a single person in the whole town of Arkadia that hasn’t heard of the famous Cupcake Blake vs. Muffin Griffin rivalry.

And it all started because Clarke Griffin’s clients, a couple organizing their wedding, decided that they’d rather have cupcakes than muffins. She promptly drove to the other end of the town and gave the owner of a decades-old establishment an earful for stealing her clients.

“It’s not my fault everyone knows that muffins are just ugly cupcakes,” Bellamy retorted, smirking at her until she flushed so furiously he was sure he’d have to get the fire extinguisher.

Tiny and freakishly intense, Clarke slammed her fists on the counter and all but declared war.

“This is not over yet.”

And because he couldn’t resist a challenge from the snobby girl with her fancy bakery, all marble counters and neat black aprons, he shot back, “Bring it on, Princess.”

He wasn’t worried about her. Cupcake Blake has been working ever since Octavia was born, at first run by his mother and then, when Bellamy graduated and couldn’t find teaching work, by him and his sister.

Well, Octavia was fonder of sitting on the counters and making fun of him, but at least Monty did some actual work (if she didn’t rope him into another one of her schemes).

“Okay, so hear me out - we egg the place. Just fucking _trash_ it.”

Bellamy rolls his eyes on a very fine Thursday morning, despite the obvious lack of customers that’s been their problem for the last two weeks. Of course they suspected Muffin Griffin; the unannounced sanitary inspection had her name written all over it.

“No, O. We’re above that.”

“Are you sure we’re above egging her place?” Monty asks, making Bellamy wince as he remembers being forced to be the getaway car driver for when Octavia actually toilet-papered Griffin’s house.

“Yeah, we are.”

Fetching a fresh batch of cupcakes from the kitchen and leaving the two to their own devices, Bellamy supposes he shouldn’t be surprised when he returns to a pile of papers and their heads bowed together, a Sharpie between Octavia’s teeth.

“Hear me out, Bell,” she tells him as soon as he walks in, cocking her eyebrow like she always does when she has a plan. “Okay, we’re above egging her place, but - are we really above industrial espionage?”

 _That_ gets his attention.

“I’m listening.”

 

*

 

Monty volunteers to go in and check the bakery out.

“Your sacrifice is appreciated, Green,” Bellamy tells him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Monty just looks at him like he’s not sure whether getting a job at Cupcake Blake was the right choice, and replies, “Well, she knows you two so it’s not like I have a choice.”

“Still. It’s very valiant of you.”

“And you’re really weird, Blake.”

“I’m a businessman.”

Monty raises his eyebrow. “You’re just proving my point here.”

As they wait for him to come back, they serve what little customers they get through the day and spend the rest shooting the shit. They don’t have to be worried just yet, their amazing Pi day party earned them enough for this month, but Bellamy doesn’t like it.

Clarke Griffin, with her parents’ connections and her haughty lifestyle, might not care whether her bakery succeeds or fails, but this is everything to Bellamy. This is how he’s going to pay for Octavia’s school and these counters are all he remembers from when their mother used to be alive.

He used to write homework on the spot by the cupcakes on sale where Octavia is currently painting her nails, every afternoon as his mother served the customers. She’d developed recipes he perfected and the name Blake became synonymous with quality treats.

He sure as hell isn’t going to let the Princess ruin it.

Monty returns some time later, carrying a paper bag full of muffins that Octavia immediately attacks.

“Et tu, Octavia?” Bellamy asks, shaking his head.

His sister just shoots him a glare. “What? They’re good.”

“You can’t eat the muffins your enemy made!”

“Did Sun Tzu say that or did you come up with it on the spot?”

Monty snorts and Bellamy rolls his eyes. “Okay. Brief me, Monty.”

Monty rubs his hands together, a mischievous glint in his eyes. If they had popcorn, Bellamy would be getting some but this way he just settles for a cupcake.

“So, I talked to the cute cashier and Clarke was mysteriously missing. I couldn’t ask him point blank about whether they were sabotaging us, but I did find out one thing. Whatever’s happening to us is happening to them, too. Their deliveries were late last week and the company claimed someone from their bakery called to delay them.”

“They could be lying,” Bellamy pointed out.

“I thought so, too, but they’ve had a surprise inspection. The sticker on their door smells of new.”

“What did they get?”

Monty shoots him a pleading look before Bellamy motions for him to answer. “An A, of course.”

Of course. Perfect Griffin and her perfect bakery.

“The guy wouldn’t tell me much, I think he was getting suspicious by the end, but their bakery is deserted. There’s no one coming or going. The baker was solving _crosswords_.”

Octavia gasps dramatically, her lips pulling up into a teasing smile instantly after. Bellamy’s pretty sure his eyes are going to fall out from the sheer rolling he does.

“So what you’re saying is that they have the same problem?”

“What I’m saying is maybe it’s time for you to talk to Clarke, Bellamy.”

 

*

 

Oh, he does try to talk to her. He really does. Drives to Muffin Griffin, stops himself from vomiting as soon as he sees the minimalistic sign above the bakery, walks in politely, says hello (his mom didn’t raise a _total_ savage), but it all goes to hell as soon as she sees him.

For someone who is 5′5 and wearing a hat shaped like a muffin, Clarke Griffin shouldn’t be as intimidating as she is.

As soon as she spots him, she stops talking to who Bellamy presumes is the “cute cashier” Monty mentioned, and whirls around with so much fury in her eyes that Bellamy stops frozen in his tracks.

The smile that usually works wonders with inspectors and clients alike falters when Clarke shows no sign of acknowledging it and demands: “How dare you come in here?”

By then she’s practically in his face, glaring daggers, and Bellamy steps away.

“I came to propose a truce.”

Clarke scoffs, crossing her arms and throwing a can-you-believe-this-guy look at the very disinterested cashier. “Now you want to talk truce? Funny. You didn’t think of that before you and Wallace decided to drive me out of business?”

Bellamy has no idea who Wallace is, doesn’t care at all. His blood boils in his veins and he shouts back, “You can’t seriously accuse me of sabotaging you when _you’re_ sabotaging _me_!”

Clarke’s eyes widen comically and Bellamy chalks up the notion of how nice she looks today to intrusive thoughts. She’s his enemy. That’s all she is. Who cares if she stands in front of the window and sunlight reflects off her hair, that’s irrelevant.

“I’m not sabotaging you.”

“Well I’m not sabotaging you either.”

She blinks at him, frowns. And then, “Well, if you’re not sabotaging me, and I’m not sabotaging you, who’s Wallace doing business with?”

The tension between them dissipates and Clarke shakes her head, motions towards the table in the corner. Bellamy follows her, although he’s still very aware of how she threatened him with a spatula once and he has no desire to repeat that.

“I think you owe me an apology,” he says because Bellamy Blake might be a lot of things, but modest he isn’t.

Clarke rolls her eyes and waves at the cashier. “Do you drink coffee?”

“That depends. Are you going to spit in it?”

It’s got to be the first time he sees Clarke smile in his presence and he allows himself to think that it looks good on her. She’s cocky and Bellamy might like that. Just a little.

“I guess you’ll never know. Yeah, Miller, two coffees, please.”

It’s disturbingly easy not to fight with her once their coffees arrive. It turns out that Cage Wallace has opened up a bakery in the main square, a place even fancier than Muffin Griffin, and he makes both cupcakes _and_ muffins.

“Both?” Bellamy asks, voice colored with disbelief. “He has both?”

Clarke nods solemnly.

“That greedy bastard.”

“My thoughts exactly. Just muffins or just cupcakes – I could live with that. But both, when we are already here?” She shakes her head. “This town is too small for three bakeries.”

“So what do we do?”

“I have a plan.” She gets out a little journal, revealing a list that nearly stings Bellamy’s eyes with how neat it is. Even her bullet points are perfectly circular.

He bites down a teasing remark on the tip of his tongue and nods.

“First, we confirm that Wallace is behind all of this. All of my deliveries were late last week and there’s no customers anywhere. Not to mention the surprise inspection which was -” She stops and huffs, slouching forward.

Bellamy interjects, “A fucking disaster, right?”

“They were so thorough. I mean, everything is okay with the bakery, they couldn’t find a flaw, I knew that they wouldn’t, but. They just creep me out.”

“Was it Tsing or Emerson?”

It’s easy to forget that they’re actually dealing with the same people most of the time in their line of work, especially when they’ve fought like hell these last few years. Bellamy isn’t proud to admit that he did steal her blackboards, but in his defense – she started by giving him bad reviews on Yelp.

“Tsing,” she presses out through gritted teeth. “Inspected my nails, too, and got pissed off when she couldn’t find anything.”

“She did the same thing to us last year,” Bellamy confirms while Clarke listens to him intently. It’s odd, seeing her like this, and Bellamy stifles a squeaky voice inside of him telling him that he should have done this a long time ago. “We got Emerson the other day. Our deliveries aren’t late but there’s no customers anywhere.”

They moan about it for a while, exchanging experiences, planning on what to do, and before he’s even aware of it, it’s already seven pm and he should get back to his own bakery for closing.

Clarke hands him a blueberry muffin “for the road”, and he catches himself waving at her as he gets into his car.

The world feels like it’s been turned upside down.

 

*

 

“It’s almost offensive how good these are,” Octavia moans through her mouth full of strawberry muffin when Clarke drops by Cupcake Blake the next day. There are crumbs all over the table and she’s making obscene sounds that ultimately make Bellamy snap.

(He and Clarke may be on good terms now but this is too much. There will be no obvious complimenting of Muffin Griffin’s products in his shop, thank you very much.)

“Go man the register, O.”

“But I’m – “

“Man. the. register.”

“Asswipe,” she retorts, throwing her hair back haughtily, and then proceeds to slam the register drawer with all of her might. She might be nineteen, but she’s still a brat.

Clarke observes their exchange without hiding her amusement. “I’ve heard younger siblings are horrible, but.”

“She’s my pride and joy,” Bellamy shoots back, only to turn around and see Octavia sticking her tongue out at him. “As I was saying.”

“I don’t have any siblings. I did have a pet turtle, but it ran away.”

He wants to say something dickish like – yeah, who wouldn’t run away from you? – but he stops himself because there’s Clarke Griffin, in his bakery and in her pink sweater, looking out of place but like she _wants_ to fit in.

So he just makes a vague hand gesture and says, “Pets, siblings, what’s the difference?”

“I imagine there is some.”

“People are liars, Griffin. Which brings us back to Wallace. Any news on that?”

Looking like she’s glad he asked, Clarke pulls out a huge orange binder out of her bag and slams it on the table. Bellamy’s starting to realize that she doesn’t half-ass anything.

“Wow, that’s – “ Upon seeing her face alight with excitement, he stutters out, “thorough.”

Clarke nods and opens it. “So, Wallace is definitely behind this. I scoped out his bakery and a lot of my former regulars were there.” She groans, drops her head into her palms and then peeks at him through her fingers. “You wouldn’t believe the place. It has zero character. Our bakeries are at least fun. His is so – _clinical_.”

“So why do they keep coming?”

“His prices are ridiculous. We could never match them,” Clarke explains, presenting him with Wallace’s bakery pricelist.

Everything is half the price.

_Everything._

When Bellamy looks up at Clarke, shocked, she shrugs. “He inherited his dad’s fortune.”

They go over the rest of the files; Wallace is well-connected within the town and the people are flocking to his bakery like there’s no tomorrow.

“We might as well just call it a day,” Bellamy concludes, not even the bright pink walls Octavia and he spent an entire weekend painting succeeding in making him feel better. They poured their heart and soul into this place.

Judging by the look on Clarke’s face, she’s done the same with her bakery. And neither of them want to let go. It’s what they’ve got, their bakeries and their ridiculous orders and vivid regulars.

“I really don’t see what we can do,” Clarke agrees, sounding like it physically pains her to do so. Despite her flaws, which include accusing Bellamy of sabotaging her and being really scary when it comes to her top-notch muffins, she’s not a bad person.

They sit wallowing in their misery before Octavia pulls up a chair and looks at them like they’ve really disappointed her.

“You want to give up? Seriously?”

“It’s not like we have a choice, O,” Bellamy tells her, glancing towards Clarke. The crease between her eyebrows is threatening to become permanent. “If you have any ideas, we’d love to hear them.”

To that, his sister grins viciously and deadpans, “We throw a party.”

“A party?”

“Yeah, Griffin. A party. There’s nothing a good party can’t solve. And your cute baker better be there.”

With a wink, she’s off, and the two of them dissolve into a fit of laughter.

 

*

 

By all means, cooperating with Griffin and her team shouldn’t work. It should be a train wreck people won’t be able to look away from. It should be almost artistic in its horribleness, but.

It’s actually okay.

For one very sunny day in June, Muffin Griffin and Cupcake Blake manage to join their efforts and pitch a tent in the middle of the city park. Lincoln, Bellamy and Clarke work together overtime to make sure that there is something for everyone.

“We’re doing Minions cupcakes for the kids,” Clarke tells him, a clipboard in her hand, marching around like she’s a freaking general as she waits for her batch of muffins to finish baking.

“Minions are the devil so no, we are absolutely not making those,” Bellamy shoots back, finishing the frosting on the vanilla cupcakes.

Clarke lets it be with a huff, and Lincoln does _not_ laugh at them. He absolutely doesn’t. Honestly, Bellamy should probably hate the guy, seeing that Octavia’s nuts about him, always dropping by Muffin Griffin’s to flirt and coming back to Cupcake Blake with way too many muffins, and Bellamy can’t even take him in a fight.

But he’s relatively the most normal of the bunch, especially when compared to Miller who mostly just glares and manages to look frightening even in a muffin-shaped hat.

So they bake muffins and cupcakes, Monty assures them that he’s got drinks taken care of, and Octavia plays obnoxious music for the whole world to hear.

It doesn’t take long for people to start dropping by, attracted by low prices and Monty and Octavia who have volunteered to eat the baked goods for the whole world to see. Something about marketing. Bellamy isn’t really sure and Clarke doesn’t want to stop laughing.

It should be a train wreck, really, but it’s not. It’s fun and, as the day goes by, they stop worrying about the futures of their respective businesses. Instead, Clarke drops her clipboard and Bellamy laughs at her when she seems shocked that his cupcakes are actually good.

“Well, what’d you expect?”

“I was expecting them to be good, obviously,” she rolls her eyes, licking the crumbs off her fingers, “but not delicious, damn it.”

There’s a crumb in the corner of her mouth and Bellamy can’t stop looking. In the mid-afternoon light her hair looks like liquid gold, and she looks caught off-guard, smiling at him like she’s forgotten all about the rivalry.

“What?” she asks, raising her eyebrows.

“You’ve got something there.” She brushes her thumb across the wrong corner and Bellamy chuckles. “Wait, let me get it.”

For a second – just a second that takes him to brush the crumb off – it feels like something might happen. Clarke looks at him, expression softening and her lips parting in a silent ‘o’.

And then whatever heat there was radiating from her skin when he’d brushed away the crumb and tucked a stray curl behind her ear, vanishes as soon as she seems to think better of it and orders, “Get back to work. Those cupcakes are not going to sell themselves.”

He mock-salutes her, back to their old dynamic in a beat, but he swears he can see her looking when she thinks he’s not going to notice.

It’s Monty who notices why people are actually coming.

“It’s because the two of you aren’t fighting.”

They’re on a break, Octavia and Lincoln manning the sale, Clarke’s feet bare in the grass as she taps away at her phone and Bellamy’s nose stuck in a book. She’d flushed and all but ran away when they were left alone for a second and his skin burned where he’d touched her.

It’s okay, he’s probably just losing his mind.

“I’m serious,” Monty protests when Clarke snorts, not sparing him a glance. “Your rivalry was the talk of the town. I started working for Bellamy just because of that. It did your marketing for you.”

“That’s ridiculous, Monty. People don’t actually care about that,” Bellamy shoots back, lifting his head up only to see a crowd of onlookers who are eyeing them warily as they eat. When Bellamy raises his eyebrows, they quickly turn away.

Then he looks back down and sees that Clarke’s feet are in his lap.

Monty grins when Bellamy groans. “See?”

“Yeah, whatever.”

The day is a success and when Bellamy opens up on Monday, there’s a regular stream of customers. Even Cage Wallace shows his sleazy face on Thursday, lurking around the bakery without actually entering.

“Does he think he can kill people just by glaring at them?” Monty muses, leaning on the counter as Bellamy stacks cupcakes in the window display.

“If that was actually possible, I think Bell would’ve been the first one to succeed,” Octavia replies, not looking up from her phone. “And speaking of glaring, have you talked to Clarke yet?”

“It’s definitely a thing I was planning to do.”

And he was. Really, he was. The weeks they spent working together and then the days before the party changed something. It wasn’t long before Bellamy knew that Clarke liked her coffee with a dash of cinnamon and Clarke made fun of him for majoring in history.

It wasn’t long before he realized that Clarke laughs a little incredulously, like she can’t believe that it’s happening, and it made his heart flip every single time.

At twenty six, he’s probably too old to have a stupid, huge crush.

But it doesn’t change the fact that he does and that every single person in Cupcake Blake knows it.

“It’s getting pathetic, Bell,” Octavia tells him, her feet on the table and still spouting wisdom like a centuries old Yoda. “No one would say anything if she didn’t have a crush on you, too.”

He chokes on thin air and stammers, “What?”

“Mm. Lincoln says she’s even worse than you.”

“Why are you talking to Lincoln?”

“Because I like him. Why aren’t you talking to Clarke?”

“It’s true, Bellamy. Even Miller agrees,” Monty says suddenly, blushing when the full force of Bellamy’s gaze lands on him.

“ _Really_ , Monty?”

“I like his beanie.”

“Why is everyone a traitor? You can’t fraternize with the enemy!”

Octavia finally drops her phone and her boots sound like war drums when she comes to stand in front of him and places a hand on his shoulder.

“Big brother, if you haven’t realized that you and Clarke are the furthest from enemies you can get, then I really can’t help you.”

 

*

 

Clarke Griffin has a lot of opinions about Bellamy Blake but the most annoying one is that he’s cute.

And he does absolutely nothing to disprove it when he shows up in Muffin Griffin with a bag full of cupcakes and a bashful smile.

It hasn’t been the best day, Cage Wallace came over and she had to throw him out, a whole batch of muffins burned in the oven as Lincoln texted Octavia and Miller threw a shit fit after his beanie got smudged with batter, but as soon as Bellamy enters the bakery –

Well, it’s like sun shows up and Clarke hates the butterflies stirring in her stomach.

Hates them.

Doesn’t hate _him_ when he flashes her a dazzling smile, all messy curls and freckles scattered across his cheeks.

“I’ve brought gifts.”

She’s not proud of herself when she attacks the chocolate cupcakes with raspberry icing but the day has been rough and at least Bellamy has the sense not to gloat.

“Thank you,” she breathes out before promptly shoving the second cupcake into her mouth and trying to stop herself from moaning. “I’m sorry I said they were shit. They’re the best cupcakes in the world.”

It pains her to say it as much as it makes him laugh and he takes a seat by the counter, his rolled up sleeves showing off a pair of perfect arms.

“Oh, this is so bad,” she mutters under her breath before turning around to get him a cup of coffee and hide her flushed cheeks. She’s a businesswoman, for God’s sake. He’s just – it’s a crush. Nothing more.

But then he smiles at her again and it’s stupid, how it makes the butterflies flutter, how she has to lean on the fridge because her knees are going wobbly.

It all started because he had the audacity to brush away a stray crumb during their last effort to save their businesses and she had to, absolutely _had to_ , notice that he’s reading the Iliad and ask him about his thoughts on Agamemnon.

She may not know a lot about emojis but she knows heart eyes when she sees them.

Bellamy takes a sip of coffee and closes his eyes. “Damn, this is too good. Whose coffee machine do you guys have?”

“I’m not giving away trade secrets.” She smiles at that, though, just to make sure he knows she’s kidding.

Judging by the way he smirks, he knows. He probably knows a lot more and that’s what prompts her to ask, “What are you really doing here?”

His hand darts to rub at his neck and he ducks his head like he did when she praised him on a good idea and even the tips of his ears went pink. They’ve come a long way from slamming doors after a fight and fuming whenever someone mentioned the other.

Then he looks up, his knee jiggling restlessly, and Clarke falls even deeper because he can’t stop, can he?

“You brought me muffins so I figured it’d be polite to return the favor.”

Clarke nods. “Thank you.”

“And also, did you know that bakeries have existed since the Roman Empire? Yeah, around 300 BC, being a baker was considered a respectable profession, which – “

He doesn’t get to finish that sentence because Clarke finally loses it, seeing him rambling and averting his gaze, and, curling her fists into her shirt, brings him up for a kiss.

For a second, she thinks she’s misread the signals, his lips stiff on hers, and then he finally, _finally_ kisses her back.

It’s sloppy because there’s a counter between them and she’s quickly losing balance, propped up on her toes, but he smiles into the kiss and the day might be rainy but there’s sunshine in her bakery.

Clarke lets go of him just to round the counter, raising her finger to make him wait, and Bellamy does, patiently, traces of her red lipstick on his lower lip.

When he kisses her this time, it’s with a smile and with a hand sliding in her hair as her arms round his waist. Bellamy Blake kisses true to who he is, stubborn, and it’s a push and pull, a playful battle that ends with Clarke grazing his lower lip with her teeth and Bellamy moaning into her mouth.

“God, I’ve wanted to do this for a very long time,” he tells her when she pulls away, smirking victoriously.

“Should’ve just stopped being an ass earlier.”

He shrugs but his hand is warm on the small of her back and Clarke stifles her giggle by burying her face in the soft cotton of his shirt.

“Riling you up was too much fun.”

“Asshole.”

“Princess.”

She kisses him again to shut him up because he’s cute but he’s also very annoying. Probably a part of why she likes him so much.

“Okay,” he finally gives in. “I’m sorry for saying that muffins are just ugly cupcakes.”

Clarke grins at him. Yeah, she’s got a very good feeling about this.

 

When she walks into Cupcake Blake the next day, without muffins but with Bellamy’s jacket around her shoulders, Octavia lets out a high-pitched squeal and nearly slaps Monty in her excitement.

“Call Miller! He owes me twenty bucks!” 

 

 


	22. Clarke dates people who look like Bellamy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Clarke starts dating someone who looks ALOT like Bellamy and her and the real!Bellamy are the only ones who don't notice that fact until their friends force them to.
> 
> Told from Raven's POV because Raven is the bae.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I'm lazy trash, it's just that it's summer and I also got a new (well, old, old as balls but M I N E) car so I mostly walk around with salt in my hair and grease on my hands. I'm feeling very Raven-y so here's Raven's POV. Also, blame the car analogy on my new state of mind, too.
> 
> With that being said, thanks for sending me the prompt and enjoy! :))

I. Benjamin

“So, what did you all think?”

Clarke is leaning on the counter, rapping her knuckles against it, and Raven pretty much wants to tell her to stop being so chipper while the rest of the group is battling the nastiest case of hangover since Monty’s last batch of moonshine.

But she’s a good friend so she doesn’t.

“What did we think about what?” Monty beats her to it, barely managing to lift his head off the kitchen table. There’s a piece of gum stuck to his hair and Jasper is poking it with a spoon.

Clarke rolls her eyes. “About Benjamin, obviously.”

“ _Oh_.”

She raises her eyebrow inquisitively and Raven has to press her lips to stop herself from grinning.

“Yeah, he’s – “ she tries to find the right word, fails, “okay.”

Benjamin, Clarke’s latest conquest. It’s only weird because Clarke hasn’t dated anyone since Lexa, two years ago while she was in med school, and now she appeared in their favorite bar, the Dropship, with a guy whose curly hair and pricklish behavior made Raven and Monty exchange worried looks, because –

Well, fuck. Even his _name_ starts with a B.

“Just okay?”

It’s Jasper who replies, “Hey, am I the only one or did that guy really look like – “

Raven cuts him off by throwing a solo cup at his head. Murphy claps, as if stirred from sleep in the middle of the kitchen floor and announces that this was a win for the history books.

Clarke, on the other hand, just clucks her tongue, crosses her arms.

“I’m bringing him to game night. I _like_ him.”

It looks like she’s expecting someone to oppose her but no one does. Jasper manages to extract the gum from Monty’s hair, Murphy falls asleep again, Bryan stirs with his head in Miller’s lap and asks for water, and Bellamy stumbles into the kitchen.

“What did you think of Benjamin, Bellamy?”

Bellamy just shrugs, pours himself coffee and takes a seat next to Monty. “Cool guy. Good one, Griffin.”

With a beam, she dances out of the kitchen, and even to Raven’s drunken haze-y brain it doesn’t look normal.

 

 

 II. Isabella

Isabella has shoulder-length dark curly hair, a constellation of freckles across her cheeks, studies history and kicks ass at darts.

Also, Clarke looks at her like she’s hung the moon.

“Bellamy, Isabella likes history, too,” Clarke tells him, one hand resting on her date’s forearm. Isabella smiles at her before directing her attention to Bellamy.

Bellamy, for his part, lights up when Clarke informs him of the fact, and they promptly launch into a joined rant about historians not being appreciated enough. By the time everyone has two or three beers in their systems, they’re best buddies, singing classics from Pirates of the Caribbean such as –

“Why is the rum gone?”

Isabella clinks her glass against Bellamy’s. “Yeah, why the _fuck_ is the rum gone?”

It’s Monty who sidles up to Raven and whispers, “Can they seriously not notice? Is that even possible?”

“Is what possible?”

Monty levels her with a thoroughly unimpressed glare and Raven laughs, takes a sip of her beer and leans back to observe the show. Clarke is watching the two, freakishly similar-looking, hot as hell, of course, and Raven really can’t believe that, for someone who is well on their way to becoming a doctor, Clarke Griffin can be this ignorant.

“Isabella, hand me the lighter! This is my song!”

“Sure thing, Bellamy!”

“Even their _names_ are similar,” Monty whispers, his eyes widening in accord to the Bellas raising their voices as Elton John’s Tiny Dancer plays in the background. Gina, at the bar, looks like she’s two steps from throwing them out.

Someone from the end of the room begs them to stop moaning.

“And the freckles, right?” Raven asks.

“And the fucking freckles.”

Monty shakes his head, exasperated. “And Clarke doesn’t realize what she’s doing?”

“I don’t think so.”

When the two of them are left alone tomorrow, Raven sits next to Clarke in front of the TV and takes a deep breath that has the blonde narrowing her eyes.

“ _What_.”

Raven cocks an eyebrow at her. “Defensive, are we?”

“I have to be because you obviously don’t approve of Isabella.”

“We totally approve of Isabella. Hell, I’d approve her at least two or three times in succession.”

That earns her a swat to the arm but Raven grins nevertheless, drapes an arm around Clarke’s shoulders.

“Benjamin, Isabella – you do realize how much they look like Bellamy, right?”

Clarke all but shrieks, ripping herself away from Raven and pointing the remote control into her face. It’d be funny if it wasn’t tragic, watching Bellamy and Clarke dance around each other like a pair of penguins forced to go backwards.

“That’s ridiculous!”

“Clarke,” Raven starts, trying to be softer. Of course her best friend is in denial. “Benjamin is just as annoying as Bellamy, has the same desire to fight the world. Also, the hair is a gimme. And Isabella – Isabella is a hot historian who looks like she could be Blake’s sister.”

Clarke shakes her head, gets up from the couch.

“You’re not making any sense, Rae. I won’t listen to this anymore.”

She breaks up with Isabella three days later, informs Raven of doing so like she’s informing her of a traffic jam downtown, and so it goes.

 

III. Blaine

The thing with Clarke is, as Raven sees it, she’s at her happiest when she’s with Bellamy. They’ve got an easy sort of friendship, feet propped up in laps, casual affection that has people asking them how long they’ve been together. Even the bickering is for bickering sake; there’s never any real heat to it.

So Raven can’t, for the life of her, understand why they aren’t dating. They’ve got a thing about being just friends, sure, but there comes a time when insisting that they’re better off as just friends becomes nothing but sheer denial and stupidity.

That’s why, when Clarke brings over her new potential partner three months later, Raven puts her foot down.

Blaine is a cop, the very definition of tall, dark and handsome, but his ironic humor is exactly the same like Bellamy’s. Even the latter dork notices, eyes widening imperceptibly when Blaine opens his mouth to speak and Clarke lets out a vibrant giggle.

Then everything turns weird, with Bellamy leaning back in the chair and fiddling with the napkin until he’s torn it to shreds, bit by bit. Clarke notices because of _course_ she does; the two of them orbit around each other, and the atmosphere hits its lowest.

“Darts?” Jasper asks, hopeful.

Raven drags Clarke to the side when the rest of the group has gone off to play the darts and hisses, “Fucking stop already.”

“Stop what?”

“Look, Griffin,” a pinch to the bridge of her nose, Raven hopes it’s not migraines, “Blake looks like a kicked puppy, Blaine thinks he’s not in on the joke and to be completely honest, I don’t think I am either. But this is not cool.”

“I’m just – “

“Shit-stirring,” Raven states matter-of-factly and Clarke raises her jaw, petulant. “You need to figure out what you want and you need to figure it out fast. I’m all for stopping in the middle of the road to calm down and flipping off the other drivers, but in this analogy, Bellamy is the other drivers and I don’t think you want to see him overtaking you.”

Raven mentally pats herself on the back for a good analogy that has Clarke worrying her lower lip.

“Is that really what it’s like?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

And then, as if she’s come to a conclusion, Clarke nods adamantly, nothing but steel and decision in her eyes.

“Okay. I’ll fix this.”

Raven sometimes wonder why everyone makes fun of her for being unable to stay in a relationship, but comes flocking for advice.

 

IV. Bellamy

After Blaine, everything goes quiet. Clarke doesn’t bring anyone new over and it goes like that for some time. Honestly, Raven thinks she’s probably still working up the courage to ask Bellamy out. Even though he’s been madly in love with her for what seems like eternity now.

(He would never admit it, though.)

And then she catches them hooking up in the restroom of Gina’s bar and the only thing she can muster is: “What the fuck?”

Bellamy’s belt buckle clangs against the sink as he averts his gaze, Clarke can’t stop blushing furiously, and Raven feels a laugh coming on.

“How long has this been going on?”

They stand side to side like a pair of embarrassed students caught hooking up in the toilet by the sternest teacher and Clarke mumbles something unintelligible.

“Sorry, didn’t catch that.” There’s a grin on Raven’s face and it’s hurting her already.

“A month.”

“A month and you didn’t tell me?”

It’s Bellamy who explains, “We kind of stumbled into it.”

“Figures. You two don’t know how to do anything right.” With a shrug, she adds, “I’m just glad you pulled your heads out of your asses. Thank fuck.”

But when she sees them walk out of the restroom, hands clasped and goofy smiles on their faces, Raven’s heart still flips.

The rest of the group erupts in cheers when they approach the table but it’s Raven’s eye that Clarke catches as she mouths _thank you_.

Bellamy winds his arm around Clarke’s waist, Murphy throws peanuts at Jasper, Miller knocks over a beer glass when he tries to flirt with Monty and yeah.

Yeah, all is right with the world now.

 


	23. Sugar mommy!Clarke (not kinky)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Clarke is a busy surgeon who is just looking for someone to have fun with and who is willing to go to charity dinners and so she posts on one of sugar mom websites and first Finn, then Raven, and eventually Bellamy answer her ad because he's doing it to pay for Octavia's school. 
> 
> Not a kinky sort of fic!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, guys, I know you've come here with certain expectations. You're either expecting this to be kinky or rated T and without kink mention. So if you're of the latter sort, then congratulations! 
> 
> Coincidentally, the first line is exactly what I've asked myself when writing this. 
> 
> To the anon who sent me the prompt - I liked it, don't worry. :D I'm sorry if you were expecting something E-rated but that and daddy kink is just weird to me and I wouldn't be able to write it. But this I can do. :D

"Ok, so how do I write this without sounding creepy?"

Wells shoots Clarke a glare over a coffee table littered with empty pizza boxes and beer cans.

"You are literally posting an ad to a sugar mommy website, Clarke. There is no way anything you write won't be creepy."

Still, they manage to come up with something relatively non-threatening because this is not a kink for Clarke. She isn't looking for a fuckbuddy. Not exactly.

She's just looking for someone to keep her company, all expenses paid, and not moan about her crazy schedule. Being a surgeon means that relationships are hard and as much as she'd like to fall in love, she prefers saving lives and feeling like she's actually doing something good for the greater good.

"Which is how most villains start out," Wells adds helpfully, trying not to grin but failing when she hits him with a yellow post-it pad. 

"You're rude. Why are we even friends?"

"Because there's no one else who'd help you write this ad."

"Good point."

So she writes the ad, makes sure she emphasizes that she's mostly looking for someone willing to drink copious amounts of champagne and make fun of snobs on charity galas for a more than polite compensation.

It's not like she's _actually_ expecting someone to reply to the ad.

But they do.

The first one is Finn Collins. He's a year younger than her, still in grad school, doing something with sustainable development that sounds too complicated for Clarke who feels like a good human just for recycling. And he's fine as far as escorts go, tells good jokes, makes even the stuffiest galas feel a little better.

Then she meets his girlfriend and well, she's not so impressed anymore.

"He was an escort?"

Raven Reyes is gorgeous as hell, wrapping her lips around a vodka bottle she brought over at 3am, shoulders squared for a fight.

Clarke just let her in and now here they are, in the middle of the kitchen, laughing their drunk asses off.

"Oh, yeah. I'm a surgeon who just can't deal with being asked about getting married just because I turned thirty."

Raven frowns at her and then shrugs. "I could help you out."

"Seriously?"

Raven turns out to be awesome and even better in bed than Finn. Clarke doesn't expect Raven to sleep with her, God forbid, but they still collapse into her bed after a happy hour party for the staff and their partners, and it's fun. Raven is all fire and enthusiasm and Clarke likes her a lot.

They work better as friends and they leave it at that.

(They still get drunk and raucous, stealing champagne from charity parties and donating it to themselves because "Have you seen me, Griffin? I live in a _shoebox_. This is totally a Robin Hood thing.")

Then Bellamy Blake happens and it's just because Clarke forgot to take down the ad.

But his e-mail is thorough, and Clarke chokes on thin air after reading a little too much information.

"He's hot," Raven comments, peeking over her shoulder. Clarke has a night off and that means camping out with Netflix in her living room. She and Raven have progressed into that easy state of friendship that means competing over who can burp louder.

"Should I call him?"

"Well, his number is right there. It'd be a pity not to."

“Well, when you put it that way.”

They arrange a meeting for the next day and Clarke manages to squeeze in half an hour between shifts to meet him at a coffee shop downtown. She’s pretty sure the stain on her sleeve is from blood, her hair is falling out of her braid and she’s not sure this is a good idea anymore, but as soon as she sees him looking around wildly and seeming like he wants to run away, her mind is set.

“What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?”

Probably not the best thing she could come up with but the guy she presumes is Bellamy Blake blinks at her and then deadpans, “Waiting for my sugar mommy.”

That makes her laugh at least and she takes a seat. “That’s not a kink for me. I feel like you should know that.”

Bellamy exhales loudly, sinking into his chair with visible relief and when he looks at her again, it’s different. “Thank fuck. I was seriously worried.”

“Yeah, don’t be.”

A moment passes in silence between them and then she asks, “Do you do this kind of thing a lot?”

Because he doesn’t look like it. If she had to guess, she’d have pegged him for a hot librarian, with his tweed jacket and thick frames perched on the bridge of his nose. He’s very pretty, of course he is, the kind of face that makes her thing ancient empires and sunlit-filled afternoons in mid-July.

“Honestly, this is a first. You seemed the least demanding out of everyone.” Then, with a crooked grin, “You wouldn’t believe the things people expect.”

“I have scars on my brain and I’ve just checked out a few ads.”

That somehow turns into pleasant chatter that makes her feel like they’re friends by the time the alarm on her phone goes off and she has to leave.

“So, just company, right?”

“Yeah. I’ll pay for every outing and whatever else you need.”

Bellamy nods, a crease appearing between his brows. Clarke wonders whether it’d be wildly inappropriate to smooth it out with her thumb. Decides against it and offers her hand for a shake.

“So, Thursday? I’ll text you my address.”

“Sure, yeah.” With a dazzling smile, “Whatever you need, Clarke.”

 

*

 

He’s a history teacher, he tells her on their way over to the hotel hosting her mother’s fundraiser. A doctor daughter sounds good when one wants to be a senator and Clarke, as always, fulfills her mother’s tiny wishes.

Bellamy, for his part, schools his features into polite indifference when he learns where they’re going. He’s got a tuxedo on, a red bowtie around his neck, but he’s gripping the wheel so hard his knuckles turn white.

“You don’t have to worry,” she tells him gently when a muscle in his jaw ticks. “This is it. I’m not going to ask you to fuck me later. We can get burgers, though.”

That makes him laugh, at least, a shallow chuckle that manages to lift the tension just a bit. “It’s not sex I’m concerned with.”

The once-over he gives her is positively obscene and Clarke regrets doing this so, so much. She didn’t even like Finn as much as she likes Bellamy. If they’d met in different circumstances, she’d have asked him out, no doubt. Or pined away until she had to give up.

But still.

“So what is it?”

“The fundraiser. I mean, I was expecting you’d be rich, but this – “ he shakes his head incredulously, eases up on the gas pedal as they approach red lights, “this is really crazy.”

Clarke smiles into the darkness of the car. “Welcome to my world.”

He charms the pants off everyone, even her mother. By the time the night is through, Clarke isn’t even drunk – no alcohol needed to get through this one, because Bellamy has had his hand on the small of her back and whenever he felt her tense up, he’d whisper a joke so stupid she had to press her lips together to stop herself from grinning.

It’s easy, with him, easier than it’d been with Finn. He’s polite and charming when he needs to be, knows just who Clarke can’t stand and makes fun of them as soon as they walk away, discusses politics and literature and economy and even dog breeds, if needed.

So by the time she gets to knock the high heels in front of his car, his jacket slung around her shoulders and Bellamy leaning next to her, Clarke feels light. Easy. The kind of good she hadn’t felt in a long while.

“Thanks for this,” she says, handing him an envelope as soon as she’s sure no one’s watching. He frowns but takes it.

“It’s in my job description.”

It only makes her feel a little shitty.

 

*

 

They have sex two months later, Bellamy coming into her apartment and Clarke struggling with the zipper of a dress bought exclusively for Wells and Gina’s wedding. Her best friend had teased her mercilessly about bringing Bellamy but she had to be consistent.

( _Wanted_ to be consistent.)

And Bellamy’s breath hitched when he saw her, his face murky in the dark glass panels, his hands steady as he placed them on her hips.

“Can you help me with the zipper, please?”

“I’m not sure I want to.”

He bent her over the kitchen table, whispered sweet nothings into her ear and the red crescent moons she made on her palms as he pounded into her stayed there until Gina said ‘I do’.

 

*

 

Clarke doesn’t really pay attention to what Bellamy asks her to get him, just goes through with it, because he doesn’t ask for a lot and it’s never over a hundred dollars.

But then she sees a list full of books, college – judging by the titles, that amount to at least five hundred dollars and it intrigues her. Of course she orders them, seems the least of her worries, but Bellamy’s not going back to school and he sure as hell isn’t studying economics. Doesn’t seem like the type.

Raven just shrugs, says something vague about “Exploring his horizons. Isn’t that what good courtesans do?” but Clarke isn’t sure what’s really going on. So many things about him don’t add up, like the dark circles under his eyes he never talks about and the phone calls he has to leave to get, apologizing profusely but always picking them up as soon as he’s out of Clarke’s hearing distance.

She asks him because the lines are blurry now that she’s cried in front of him on the anniversary of her father’s death and he stayed, stayed and left the envelope she’d handed him on the kitchen table.

“That’s what friends do,” he said and it made her heart flip, even though it’s irrational. They’re not friends, can’t be, not as long as she’s paying him to be nice. It hardly seems fair to expect him to _actually_ like her.

“What’s with the books?” she asks when they’re walking over to a restaurant for one celebration or the other. She barely keeps track anymore, wings it, with Bellamy social butterfly Blake by her side. Everything’s easy.

He freezes at that, just stops moving in the middle of the pavement, and he looks _startled_.

“Hey, you don’t have to explain. It’s fine.”

“No, it’s – “ he pinches the bridge of his nose, sharply inhales, makes Clarke feel a little cold even in June when she has to sleep with all of her windows open.

(His purple shirt makes her think of sunsets over Paris. He’d like to go. She’d like to take him.)

“It’s my sister.”

“You have a sister?”

Bellamy nods, starts walking, lets her catch up with him. “Octavia. I’m doing this to pay for her school.”

Oh.

_Oh_.

Her heart lodges in her throat and the lights turn a little brighter, red around the edges and thick with regret.

“Shit – Bellamy – I had no idea.”

“Neither does she,” he says, smiling ruefully with his eyes full of constellations and hair like hurricanes. She likes him because Clarke hasn’t felt like painting for the longest time but now she wants to map every single star on his cheeks.

That’s when reality swoops in; the shock of knowing that he has to do this. And it wouldn’t be fair of her to tell him that she’d like to date him, just that, just Bellamy and Clarke, sitting somewhere and talking about their lives without manila envelopes being passed.

It’s not fair because that’s what he needs.

So he keeps an arm around her waist as Clarke’s co-worker proposes a toast to their colleague’s promotion, holds her up when she gets tipsy and makes sure she gets home safe.

There’s an endless pit of despair in her stomach, writhing and twisting, and so when they meet and he brings her home, peppering feather light kisses on the side of her neck, she places her palms on his chest. He’s always felt solid, in a way that pillars standing amidst ruins do.

“You don’t have to do this,” she reminds him, tries not to let how wrecked she feels seep into her voice. Judging by the way he frowns, cocks his head at her, she’s not successful.

“What are you talking about?”

“This,” she waves her hand vaguely, gesturing to the space between them, “having sex with me. You know you don’t have to.”

And Bellamy laughs, slides his hand up until his thumb brushes against her cheekbone, gold melting in his eyes.

“If things were different, I’d ask you out.” Then he smirks, adds, “Eat you out, too.” because he’s a cocky bastard and she likes him all the more for it.

Still, she swats his arm and he tucks her into her side, walking out of her dark apartment and into the brightly lit streets. She’s still got his jacket around her shoulders and he tells her about his students, a woman with pink hair on the train, Octavia graduating in a couple of months. Clarke tells him about the patients she’s managed to save, about those she couldn’t and that left her curled up in the middle of the staff room floor. She tells him about the scar on her hand from where she and Wells tried to climb a tree when they were five and she tells him a lot of things no one’s ever heard about her before.

Midnight finds them in a diner downtown, sitting across from each other. Bellamy’s easy laugh and Clarke’s eye rolls, coffee going cold as they talk like they’re old friends who are trying to catch up.

“I like champagne, but I like this way more,” she tells him at the end of the night, biting into a chocolate pancake. He leans over the table, brushes off powdered sugar off the tip of her nose and she sticks her tongue out at him. “Jerk.”

“Dick.”

“Asshole.”

“Princess.”

Her stomach hurts from laughing, soft yellow lights reflecting off the linoleum floors, a waitress who calls Clarke Sugar and rolls her eyes at Bellamy’s futile attempts to charm her. It’s strangely perfect, in a way that ordinary things often are when you’re in the right company.

When they’re standing in front of her door, her hip leaned against the wall and Bellamy lingering with his car keys in his right hand, Clarke whispers, “If things were different, I’d say yes.”

This time, when he beams at her, all pearly white teeth and sunshine filtering through his eyelashes, Clarke doesn’t even think about feeling bad.

 

*

 

Things stay the same – horribly friendly in a way that makes Clarke’s fingers itch to tangle themselves into Bellamy’s hair – all the way until June.

That’s when Octavia Blake comes home and finds the two of them wrestling on the couch. Because they’re adults. Absolutely.

“You must be Clarke.”

Clarke freezes like a deer caught in the headlights, Bellamy’s forearm pressed against her stomach and their legs tangled. Frozen plays in the background and Clarke is pretty sure that it’s time for Elsa’s dramatic song.

“Uh, yes. Octavia?”

The girl nods, grinning ear to ear. She’s beautiful, unfairly so, and Clarke wonders how can it be fair for two siblings to be this _pretty_.

One things leads to another because it’s not hard to make friends with a girl who graduated economics but is also a kickboxing instructor whose idea of fun is hiking and paragliding. So when Octavia’s passed out on the couch and Bellamy is walking Clarke out, he flashes her a thankful smile.

“Thank you for not explaining who you were. She thinks we’re friends and that I’ve got a hopeless crush on you.”

“I thought that was my line but yeah, sure,” she shrugs, unable to keep a grin off her face. “It wouldn’t be hopeless, just so you know.”

“Yeah, I know. Just give me a little time.” His smile falters and he sticks his hands into his pockets, the same as Clarke does, as if they’re afraid they’re going to do something that is forbidden. Something like hoping. “I want to pay you back.”

Clarke chokes on thin air. “What the fuck?”

“If I’m going to ask you out, I’m going to pay you back.”

“Just buy me drinks for the rest of our lives and we’ll call it even.”

Bellamy cocks an eyebrow at her but the smile is back and it shouldn’t make her feel so happy but damn, it does. “For the rest of our lives, huh, Griffin? We’re already writing our vows?”

“Nope. We’re getting married somewhere far away,” she declares proudly, “so no one can mention how we met.”

“Damn, that’s smart.”

“And I’ve got something even better, too.”

“Hit me.”

“Bellamy Blake, do you want to go out on a date with me?” For a second, happiness and aggravation mix on his face, downward curve of his mouth and a glint in his eye. And then she explains, “Because you said you want to pay me back if you’re going to ask me out. I found a loophole.”

Bellamy snorts, but brings his arm around her shoulders, pulls her in closer. “Of course you did. You’re such a smartass, Griffin, you know that?”

She hums in confirmation, twists in his hold just a bit so she can stand on her toes, coming close enough for their noses to brush.

“A really great guy told me that once, yeah.”

“I bet he’s hot, too.”

“You’d like him.”

“I like you better.”

She’s kissed him a lot of times, but this time is the best. This time it’s with a promise of an actual date, Bellamy smiling into the kiss as she tangles her fingers into his hair, feeling like a schoolgirl that’s kissing her sweetheart on the porch.

Well, Bellamy is all fire and skipping stones and Fourth of July fireworks, his hands searing hot against the small of her back, and she can’t help but to laugh when he pulls her into the house again, tiptoeing as they make their way upstairs as to not wake Octavia up.

Their first date turns out to be breakfast in his kitchen, Octavia pretending like she’s going to vomit and Bellamy hitting her on the head with a spatula. It’s blueberry pancakes and fresh coffee, sunlight streaming in through the huge windows. It’s Bellamy Blake incarnate and for the first time in her life, Clarke is thankful for doing something that creeped her out at first.

Because she gets him now.

And that’s enough.


	24. Hogwarts/Jily AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exactly what it says in the title - Hogwarts AU with the Jily Black Lake scene, only happier and with no Severus Snape (Snily sucks y'all!).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who voted for me in this year's Bellarke Fanfiction Awards. It's incredible to know that you've read my fics and liked them. I still have trouble wrapping my head around that, but thank you! Thank you! You guys are the best readers ever and I love you so much! <3
> 
> Second, I'm sorry I've been slow with fics these days. It's summer, I'm starting up a website, a lot of things are going on, but I'm happy and I hope you are too! If you're not, well, I hope this fic will cheer you up.
> 
> Third, MORLEY FOR POTTER 2K16 AND FOREVER!
> 
> Enjoy! :))

A lot of things could be said about the friendship of one Slytherin prefect, Clarke Griffin, and a Gryffindor one, Bellamy Blake, but if there's something no one would dare say it's that it's boring.

Never has been, never will be. Ever since they first laid eyes on each other, it was as if they couldn’t quite rest. Clarke’s fingertips itched to cast a hex on the befreckled git with permanently crooked glasses on the bridge of his nose, and every Bellamy’s friend teased him about his particular penchant to find and provoke the hell out of the blonde pureblood know-it-all.

But with time, they learned that maybe they weren’t as different as they had once thought. Octavia Blake started her first year of Hogwarts and wound up sorted in Slytherin, where Clarke made sure she felt welcomed. And for that, Bellamy Blake was grateful.

It turned into late-night study sessions, Clarke’s frizzy hair peeking through her fingers as she cradled her head in horror over this week’s Potions essay, and midnights greeted in the Astronomy Tower when Bellamy could smuggle a bottle of firewhiskey from Hogsmeade.

One could even say that they were friends by the time OWLs were nearly done and that year’s generation decided to breathe some fresh air they’ve sorely missed while cramming for their exams.

Dropping her books onto the grass and plopping her head into Raven’s lap, Clarke nearly misses Bellamy striding down the path leading from the castle with his clique. On a different day, she would’ve ignored him, but on this one she crooks an interested eyebrow when he calls out her name.

"Go on a date with me, Griffin?"

It's a running gag, really, and Clarke snorts. He's asked her that more than fifteen times in the last two weeks, ever since she moped about having gone to Hogsmeade alone on Valentine's Day. It's in her blood; everyone in her family is bitter and petty. 

But every time he'd ask, there was this faint glimmer of hope in her chest, despite knowing full well that he was only joking. He couldn't have been serious and that's precisely why she's decided to respond in an equally joking manner. 

"I'd rather go on a date with the giant squid than you, Blake!"

He gives her a one-shoulder shrug and his fingers go for his tie.

In a second, Bellamy Blake is standing in the May sunshine wearing nothing but his boxers and a dangerous smirk.

"What the hell is he doing?" Clarke turns to Raven, half-panicked and half-flustered because Bellamy's favorite subject is History of Magic and there is no way nerds like him can be this ridiculously built.

Raven grins at her, Gryffindor tie she tied around her head like a makeshift headband dangling in the wind. "I think he's making good on your dare."

"But I didn't - It wasn't a -" she stammers, her voice picking up until Bellamy is nearing the lake's surface and she shouts, "It wasn't a dare!"

With that, he dives into the lake and the chatter of fifth year students dies down to shocked and awed whispers.

Somewhere to the right, Murphy groans with ancient exhaustion.

"Why are you all standing around?! He's going to drown!"

Not a lot is known about the giant squid but it doesn't take to visitors gladly. That - and not Clarke's worry for Bellamy (absolutely not) - makes her run towards the edge and lean forward, shouting out his name in vain.

She's just about to take off her shoes when the calm surface stirs with one giant tentacle, Bellamy Blake's disheveled figure hanging off it.

When he smiles at her, wet curls brushing his eyes and pale blue boxers soaked through, Clarke collapses onto the heels of her hands, giving a sigh of audible relief.

It takes him a minute to swim over and then he leans forward, his nose brushing her knees. Daring contrasted with absolute innocence in the way he cocks his head at her, he says, "Hey, Griffin."

"Hey, asshole."

"Guess what?"

She raises her eyebrows, knows from the width of his grin that it can't be anything good.

"I asked the Giant Squid if it wants to go out on a date with you and it said no. Turns out, you're not its type."

Later on, Clarke is going to blame what happens on exhaustion and relief. She is going to blame helping Bellamy up, noticing that he's got freckles on his (very broad) chest, too, and pressing her lips to his, on being glad that he's alive.

But when she kisses him, ferociously, it only takes him a second to kiss back with all of his might. After all, that's how it is with Bellamy - even when they're fighting. He never does things half way. No, he's either all in or all out.

When they break apart to the background music of cheers and whoops, Murphy and Raven joining their hands in a little victory dance and Monty on the verge of tears because he’s lost the bet, Bellamy brushes a stray curl out of her face and beams at her.

“Whatcha say, Griffin? Can I be your rebound?”

And yeah. Clarke is definitely very stupidly in love with him.


	25. Drunken confessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I already had a same title somewhere but hey, what can you do?
> 
> Prompt: "I wish you would write a fic where..." Bellamy is getting drunk coz he's angry and accidentally confesses Clarke his love ;)
> 
> OKIE DOKIE

The thing about Bellamy Blake is that he _cares_.

Six days in a week, he tries to mask it, cover it up with sardonic smirks and off-hand comments, but on the seventh – he crumbles.

He crumbles when his sister calls him in the middle of the night because she needs a ride and her mascara is running down her cheeks. If he knows one thing, he knows what heartbreak feels like and he spoon-feeds her hot chocolate until she’s safely asleep.

He crumbles when Miller tries to be witty and sarcastic after a fight with Bryan, even though his eyes are glistening with tears.

He crumbles when Clarke shows up on his doorstep after a long study session, her hair falling out of her bun and her face grey like the stormy skies overhead. Sometimes she brings vodka over and tries to smile. Most of the time, it’s just a second before tears are welling up in her eyes and she collapses into Bellamy’s arms.

Bellamy cares about a lot of things he really should care about. But there are things he shouldn’t, and one of them is Clarke going on a date with a girl she met in a pottery class, lips red and staining his cheek when she kissed him before heading out.

So what does he do?

He gets drunk.

Gina smiles at him sympathetically as she pours him whiskey, says, “Bad night?”

“Bad life.”

He drinks until he can’t feel his toes anymore and flirts his way through getting a number from a guy who’s both his and Clarke’s type, and really – she’d be proud.

But Bellamy doesn’t want the guy, six feet tall and skin darker than Bellamy’s, lips so fucking kissable it brings him back to the time Clarke ate too much sour candy and her lips ended up swollen as she laughed at his stupid jokes.

He wants _Clarke_.

“Does she even know?” Gina asks when he’s done moping, his head on the bar right next to a puddle of what looks like blue curacao.

“How would she know?”

“You haven’t told her?”

He shakes his head, feels the room spinning. Gina’s lips part as if she’s about to say something and then she suddenly looks away, a smile pulling up the corners of her mouth, remarks, “No time like the present.”

It takes him just a moment to see her – black, backless dress that is too fancy for this kind of bar, heels in her hands, lips pursed instead of red. She eyes him, takes a seat next to him.

“I’ll take it from here. Thanks, Gina.”

Fuck, even her voice makes him think of what it’d be like hearing it in his kitchen every morning, all sleepy smiles and hoarse throats. Maybe an ‘I love you’ would fall off from someone’s lips and maybe with Clarke it wouldn’t sound like a curse.

She’s exasperated when she speaks. “What the fuck are you doing, Bellamy?”

There’s enough disappointment in her eyes and her voice to make anger flare in him, burning bright and red and threatening to ruin everything.

“Drinking.”

Clarke scoffs, takes away his glass and downs what’s left of his whiskey. His wallet is looking pretty thin and she’s just looking pretty.

“No shit, Sherlock. Why?”

“I had a shitty day.”

“You were fine when I left three hours ago.”

“The wheel of fortune keeps spinning.”

She slams her palm on the table, makes him sit up and then brings a finger under his chin. Bellamy’s never been more afraid in his life but his heart is doing somersaults, as it always does when Clarke touches him.

“Alcohol is not the solution to whatever the fuck is bothering you. Act like a grown-ass man, Bellamy. For once in your life.”

The stool clatters to the floor when he stands up and backs away. He’d never lay a finger on her and so all he does is create crescent moons in his palms as he spits out, “Don’t you dare say that, Princess.”

He shouldn’t have said that and he knows it by the way she flinches, something inside of her closing off. It’s almost funny, how he knows that she’ll wrap her arms around her torso even before she’s done it.

“Alright, if you want to be a fucking asshole, go right ahead. Fuck best friends, right? It’s not like I came over to see what’s wrong. It’s not like I care.”

And he knows she does. He knows, but it still makes him angry because here she is, his best friend of seven years and he still can’t find it in himself to just go right out and say it like a normal human being.

Instead, his tongue uncoils and his heart clenches in his chest.

“Yeah, fuck best friends, Clarke, except that I can’t be your best friend!” She doesn’t even try to mask how hurt she is but Bellamy presses on, “I’ll never be able to be just your best friend because you went out with Niylah and I’m an asshole for being jealous because I am so fucking in love with you but I’m too big of a coward to admit it!”

He’s always thought that the books had it wrong – there couldn’t be any moments that made you feel like the world stopped spinning, time just pausing and everything suddenly going quiet. But when Bellamy realizes what he’s said, it’s exactly like that.

For the longest time, it’s just the two of them in the bar. The people keep coming and going, someone brushes his elbow, but Bellamy is looking at Clarke and if she could paint the expression on her face, it would be a masterpiece.

“You’re jealous?”

“I know I don’t have the right to be.”

Clarke shakes her head. “No, you don’t.”

His stomach plummets, an invisible clock ticking away nanoseconds until she’s out of his life for good.

And then –

“But I’m in love with you, too, and I can’t blame you.”

It knocks the breath out of his lungs, just a few simple words, Clarke saying it so seriously as if she’s so sure about this. About him.

“You-“

She hums in confirmation, crosses what little space there is between them but doesn’t kiss him. No. Instead, she whispers into the crook of his neck, “You shitweasel. I was so fucking worried when Gina called me.”

That, at least, makes him laugh and he kisses the top of her head, pulls her in for a hug. Where there was blind rage just a minute ago, now there is a hazy feeling of euphoria as Bellamy sobers up to the tune of Clarke’s laughter.

The night ends with the two of them on his couch, as always, Clarke’s legs tangled with Bellamy’s but this time, when he reaches for her hand, she laces their fingers together. This time, when she comes closer, it’s to kiss him like she’s been wanting to do that her whole life.

And this time –

“Hopefully now you won’t be a dick about it.”


	26. Soulmates + soulmate’s first thoughts tattooed on you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt - Bellarke + soulmate's first thoughts tattooed on you.
> 
> For April!

_Unhelpful asshole;_

that’s what Bellamy wakes up with tattooed on his arm on the morning of his eighteenth birthday.

_Self-entitled princess._

Clarke groans and buries her head into her pillow. Typical. 

They go through years that follow seemingly uncaring of how the words tattooed on the inside of their arms differ from their friends’. Some have “damn, he’s hot” or “I want to kiss her brilliant brain”, but it’s a rare ocurrence that someone has an actual swear word as the first thing their soulmate thinks of them.

It doesn’t exactly help that Bellamy has been defined as an asshole for building up walls so high no one can bring them down ever since he was thirteen, and it doesn’t make it easier on Clarke that people choose to call her a princess when they want to hurt her.

If anything, their soulmate shouldn’t be dead set on hurting them. Soulmates are homes, soulmates are north stars that glisten brightly in the dark night sky of a very cruel world.

They shouldn’t be disasters.

But neither of them thinks about it after a few close calls. Bellamy gets called an asshole but never unhelpful, and no one mentiones Clarke’s presumed self-entitlement. She goes to art school, he takes care of his sister and gets a job in the library while taking community college classes, and it’s all good.

All good, until Bellamy is paging through his copy of the Iliad and someone who he can only describe as a blonde menace whirls into his very peaceful library and slams her tiny hands on the desk.

“Where the _fuck_ is your Hughes’ The Shock of the New?”

Bellamy blinks at her, thinks, _self-entitled princess_ and makes sure he drawls as lazily as possible, “And where the _fuck_ are your manners?”

“Wow,” the blonde widens her eyes, a sickly sweet smile on her lips, “you really _are_ an unhelpful asshole.”

He’s just about to say something, a biting retort teasing at the tip of his tongue, when he realizes what she said. Then he shuts up, his insides turning to ice and his heart somersaulting as if it’s the first day of spring.

The girl keeps looking at him, her lips pursed now and an eyebrow strategically cocked. There’s a pencil wound in her hair, a beauty mark above her lips and she’s such a fucking princess. He likes her instantly.

“Say that again, please,” Bellamy manages through a laugh that’s now bursting out of him, much to his soulmate’s shock. 

“What?”

“Say that again, you self-entitled princess.”

Her lips part in a small o, too lovely for someone who looked like she wanted to punch Bellamy just a moment ago, and then she gets it.

It takes them a while to stop laughing, after which they’re both leaning on the desk, books completely forgotten. Her name is Clarke, she tells him, laughter tears in the corners of her eyes, featherlight touch when she shakes his hand.

“Nice to finally meet you,” he retorts, adds his name, watches her smile like _yeah, of course_ , she’d been expecting that. 

“You are rude, though,” she adds, when they’re walking out of the library, her precious book under her arm, Bellamy’s hand on the small of her back, both of them instinctively orbiting around each other, colliding when there’s a puddle and Clarke moves to avoid it.

And Bellamy just laughs because yeah, being called an asshole always hurt. He never tried to be one. But when Clarke calls him that later on (after kisses and crying and ‘where the hell have you been, huh?’s), smirks mischievously when he gets her cinnamon-spiked coffee to apologize for being late, it sounds like a good thing.

Sometimes, it even sounds like I love you. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it! <3
> 
> This is a part of my 2.9k + poetry celebration on my tumblr (@marauders-groupie) which you can all join [here](http://marauders-groupie.tumblr.com/post/150224482037).
> 
> [Also, I've recently been published in an anthology and it'd mean a lot to me if you checked it out. If you buy it, I'll probably scream, but please leave a review mentioning me or my poems specifically because there is a contest going on!](https://www.amazon.com/Poetry-Anthology-International-Indie-ebook/dp/B01KGKCGOG)
> 
> Update time over, have fun yall!


	27. FLUFF!!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Modern AU Fluffy Bellarke prompt as a part of my tumblr 2.9k follower + poetry celebration for Natalia!
> 
> Basically - Bellamy's life isn't going well, there is yoghurt and "platonic" cuddles. Read at your own risk!

Clarke finds him sitting on the couch at 2am, eating blueberry yoghurt and wearing no pants.

If this was Raven or Monty, Clarke wouldn’t have been concerned, but it’s her roommate - her best friend, _Bellamy_.

He reads drugstore health magazines unironically, for fuck’s sake.

So she runs over to the couch where he’s marathoning history documentaries and asks, “Bellamy? What’s going on?”

He flinches, as if he hadn’t seen her coming (very likely, seeing as he’s sitting in total darkness, except for the light coming from the TV screen), thick rimmed glasses smeared with yoghurt and calmly states,

“I’ve lost all control over my life.”

It’s definitely not Clarke’s huge crush talking when she knows that Bellamy is a pillar of their friendship group. He’s the only one with a plan at 28, whereas the rest of them are just kind of flailing around. He carries Advil whenever they go out, always has a packet of tissues at hand and knows the cheapest taxi service.

So yeah, when Bellamy says that he’s lost all control over his life, it’s probably Judgement Day and Clarke should repent for her sins.

“What happened?” 

Somehow, she’s managed to find spare room on their tiny couch, her knees pressed to his thighs. He’s wearing those stupid boxers she gave him for last Christmas with some shitty history pick up line (he laughed it off, Clarke realized that her pining is nowhere near being resolved) and he looks sad and small.

Also, he shrugs and fuck, she can’t stop herself, she wraps her arms around him and pulls him into a hug. If he’s uncomfortable, he doesn’t show it, instead just leans into her and sighs.

“I didn’t get the job and Octavia is moving to Japan.”

Clarke’s stomach plummets. “Fuck.”

His self-deprecating chuckle vibrates against her skin. “Yeah, that’s about right.”

“How can I help?”

“It’s all good, I’ve got yoghurt.” With that, he raises the empty cup. Then he pouts. “I guess I don’t have that either.”

“You’ve got me. I mean, sure, I’m not _yoghurt_ , but you know.”

He laughs again, a little deeper now and it makes Clarke feel all fuzzy. She likes it when she can make him honestly laugh. Bellamy mostly puts on an act for the benefit of his loved ones; he’s at his most honest when they’re just chilling and he can frown as much as he wants. That’s what makes his smiles feel all that more important.

“You’re better than yoghurt, Clarke. Thank you.”

She is not going to let her crush turn this into something meaningful, she is not.

“Look, I know that you really wanted this job,” she starts when it’s safe enough to reassure him that he will be fine, “but you’ve got three more interviews coming along. You’ll be a great teacher and screw anyone who thinks otherwise. You’re Bellamy Blake, you got this.”

He freezes in her arms, their legs entangled, and Clarke’s heart stops. She goes over what she’s said, finds nothing about being so ridiculously in love with him that even his morning milk moustache makes her fall deeper for him, and then just waits.

Bellamy puts the empty cup down and turns to look at her. He might have tears in his eyes, which. She can’t fault him for that. His life sucks at the moment. All she can do is be a good friend and help him get through this.

“Why do you even believe in me?” he asks, voice just a little higher-pitched than usual. If it weren’t for the tips of his ears turning pink, she would’ve thought it’s just a question.

But she knows Bellamy, and it’s not.

“Because I haven’t seen you not kick ass of anything life’s put in front of you. That’s what you do. You’re brilliant like that. You _persist_.”

He blinks. “I told you that you’re an asshole the first time we met.”

“Yeah, and I fell for you anyways, so - “

She covers her mouth with her hands but it’s too late. It’s too late, she is too tired and there is something about night time that makes all of them raw.

Bellamy doesn’t breathe and neither does she. He keeps looking at her, like he can’t believe his ears, and she finally gets enough sense to get up from the couch and stammer out an apology.

“I’m gonna go. You’ll be fine, Bell, you always are.”

“Clarke - “

“Just forget about it, okay? It’s - it slipped.”

Clarke’s just about to whirl around and run to her bedroom when he gets a hold of her wrist and stops her, makes her turn to look at him. When she does, he’s smiling. 

Of all the things he could be doing, Bellamy Blake is smiling.

“You fell for me, huh?” he asks, smirks, and Clarke can breathe again. This is a familiar territory.

“Don’t let it get to your head, Blake. You’re still a dick.”

“Okay,” he grants, but he’s still grinning. “But you want _my_ dick.”

“Oh my God, you’re incorrigible, this is - “

She doesn’t even get to finish her sentence because the next thing she’s aware of is Bellamy’s lips curved in a smile, pressing against hers and his hands everywhere.

It’s easy, because of course it is. It’s Bellamy. She’s dreamt about this moment for a long time, found thirty different versions of it, and yet - none of them can compare to how good it feels to be kissed by him.

“In case you didn’t get the memo - yeah, I’m in love with you too,” he tells her when he’s kissed her breathless, his hand warm on her ribcage. 

“Oh, good. I was worried for a second there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still doing these - find out how you can apply [here](http://marauders-groupie.tumblr.com/post/150224482037)!


	28. Wrong Skype Number

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “i accidentally called the wrong skype number and it turns out the person i called was you and you’re in a different time zone, so it’s 3am where you are and you just woke up and look fucking pissed but you’re cute so… let’s do this again when you’re not asleep. i’m more than willing to stay up into the dead of night to talk to you”
> 
> for pevxnsie on tumblr!

Clarke’s coping really badly with Wells’ move to the West Coast. In fact, she’s coping so badly that she decides to call him and rant about it on Skype. Probably asking whether he’d take her in if she moved to sunny California instead of rainy East Coast where, yeah, the leaves are pretty but it’s too damn _rainy_. 

So she punches in his number, even though the screen is a bit blurry since it’s midnight and she is tired after another gallery opening, and listens to the annoying Skype ringtone until he picks up.

When he does - it’s dark and she can’t see anything but a vague outline of a human’s top of head.

And then - 

“What the fuck, it’s three AM, Miller, I don’t care if you - “

Two things become very clear to Clarke then:

1) This is not Wells. Wells does not wear glasses, doesn’t have curly hair and doesn’t look this _hot_ when he frowns.

2) The guy on the other side comes to a realization that she is not _Miller_.

But before Clarke can say anything, the man on the other side asks, “Who are you?”

“Clarke.”

He cocks an eyebrow at her. “Clarke what?”

“Clarke Griffin.”

“Okay, Clarke Griffin,” he leans forward, interlaces his fingertips and damn, look at those arm veins popping. She’s dead. “Why are you calling me at this ungodly hour?”

“I meant to call my best friend but I must’ve punched in the wrong number.”

“Yeah, that’s fucking obvious.” The guy snorts, rolls his eyes, and yeah, he’s pissed. It makes Clarke cross her arms at her chest, return the glare. It’s a mistake. 

“Go back to sleep, I didn’t mean to wake you up. And you don’t have to be an asshole about it. It happens.”

She’s just about to press ‘end call’ button and go to bed because this is exactly the sort of thing that happens when she decides to do things at her most tired, but the guy just shrugs, adjusts his glasses and says,

“I’ll never be able to go back to sleep so you might as well tell me what’s up.”

“I don’t even know your name.”

“It’s Bellamy Blake.” He waves a hand, “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

And just like that, Clarke starts talking. There’s something to be said about honesty you can only achieve with people you’ve just met. So she tells him about how hard it is without Wells in Boston, about her stupid colleagues, about how she wants to paint and wants to stick her toes into the sand and soak up the sun.

Bellamy, despite all his prior faults, listens to her without trying to get a word in. He does leave to get himself a mug of coffee but after that - he keeps listening. It’s different, it’s good, and in the end - it leaves Clarke feeling understood, when he tells her that his sister moved away and he didn’t know what to do.

“But I’m a teacher so that’s different. You can paint in California, too. If you want to go, just do it. God knows you look like you could use some sun.”

Clarke grins. “Thanks, Bellamy. Real nice of you.”

“Just sayin’, you could even get a tan here. Imagine that.”

“I’d turn tomato red before that happens.”

“We could work on it.” Now he’s smiling and when he stretches, his shirt rides up, uncovering a piece of blurry skin (it’s Skype, nothing is not blurry on Skype) and what she presumes is a tattoo.

So she asks him about that and time seems to escape their grasp; soon enough, the sun is rising in San Francisco (where Bellamy lives and teaches; coincidentally, where Wells lives, too) and Bellamy ducks his head with a small smile when he tells her he has to go.

“Oh, shit, yeah. I should probably go to sleep, too.”

“Yeah, Clarke. People need sleep. I’m a teacher so I know what I’m saying.”

But she asks him what he teaches and he asks her what she paints and they only end the call after he’s fully dressed and Clarke had the privilege of seeing him shirtless. 

“It’s probably a weird thing to ask, but - do you want to do this again?”

She tries to tone down the butterflies swirling in her stomach but can’t, so she just nods and smiles. “Yeah, I’d love to.”

*

Three months later, after twenty Skype calls to Bellamy and a frightening amount of texts, after Wells laughing when she tells him she wants to move to San Francisco and saying - “Fucking finally” - Clarke packs up her bags and leaves.

It’s easier, breathing on the West Coast, being surrounded by people who seem to be more liberated and liberating. And it’s harder, because she gets to meet Bellamy and has to pretend like she hasn’t been half in love with him ever since he offered to give her a hand with the move.

He waits for her on the pier, near a coffee shop she’s gotten used to frequenting. It shouldn’t be this picturesque but there are seagulls and the waves are crashing against the sand and Bellamy looks even more beautiful now, with blue sunset melting against the smile on his face.

“Finally,” he says when he sees her and lifts her off the ground in a hug that makes her feel whole, somehow. They take their sweet time making small talk, catching up, and then they’re sitting with their toes in the sand, moon high in the sky above them and people restlessly milling around.

“I love it. I love it so, so much here,” Clarke tells him.

And Bellamy smiles, cups her cheek in his hand and hell, there might be a war raging around them, but she’d only see the soft gaze in his eyes.

“And I’m glad you’re here. Now, can I fucking kiss you or not because I’ve wanted to do this ever since you woke me up at 3am?” 

There’s laughter in his voice and Clarke nods fervently, smiling into the kiss when he finally presses his lips to hers. And yeah, thank heavens for Skype.


	29. Bellarke First Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My take on Bellarke first kiss, but canon-verse. Because that Bellarke shit is important. For Haley! <3

Love is easy for some people. Clarke sits by the bonfire at night and watches Miller with his hand around Bryan, Harper tucking herself into Monty’s embrace, Raven laughing with her head back thrown to the stars - happy, in love with herself.

She watches them, moonshine sloshing in her cup and feels loved all the same, just surrounded by it. People like her, Commanders of Death, they don’t get this. But they do get friends who love them and maybe it’s enough.

“Everyone’s slightly drunk,” Bellamy whispers into her ear, his breath fanning across her cheek. He’s always warm and Clarke doesn’t know why she loves him. Yes, there is trust, because she’d walk to the end of Earth for him and knows he’d do the same.

But there is something else there, too.

So she smiles at him, her eyelids droopy. “So are you, Bellamy. In case you haven’t noticed.”

His arm fits around her shoulders like the universe meant for it to be there and it’s okay, this is enough. It’s enough that she gets to wrap her arms around him at night when she barges into his cabin, breathless, and he makes room for her because he knows the taste of blood their nightmares always reek from.

(”I thought something happened to you,” she told him once, climbing under the covers.  So he held her close and they tried to forget it the next day but it’s not easy. Not when you finally feel safe with someone.)

“Me, princess?” He gasps theatrically and she swats at his arm. “I would _never_ get drunk.”

“It’s good. You deserve to let loose.”

Then his gaze on her softens and of course he’s not drunk. It’d take a whole distillery for the two of them to forget about everything and get drunk in peace. 

“So do you, Clarke.”

Clarke nods, curls into herself and slightly into him. asks, “Am I a horrible person for just wanting to go to bed?”

Bellamy’s laugh is deep and happy, in a way she’s never heard it. “No. No, Clarke, you’re good.”

So he takes her home because his cabin is now their cabin; equal parts his books and her sketchpads, overflowing with drawings of him - the ones he pretends he doesn’t look at when she’s not home (but the tips of his ears always stay pink for long afterwards). This kind of codependency shouldn’t be sane, she can’t expect him to pause his life because they wake up with nightmares and need someone who understands them. He could get someone, he could be loved. 

There is so much in him that he thinks is broken but really, Bellamy Blake is the most wholesome person she’s ever met. 

“I should move away,” she tells him when their boots are off, the fire crackling in the improvized hearth. Bellamy freezes, looks at her, that cagey look back in his eyes - as if he’s torn between staying and fleeing.

“Why?”

A muscle in his jaw ticks. Clarke turns away.

“It feels selfish. You could love someone, someone - _right_.” She wrinkles her nose and when she looks at Bellamy, finds him doing the same. “You still have a shot at being happy, Bell. I don’t want to take that away from you.”

“I _am_ happy.”

“I saw Mel from Factory Station looking at you. I saw _you_ looking at her. You could have that. You could have kids like Lincoln and Octavia. You could - “

“You don’t know what I want,” he snaps, gets up from his bed and comes so close that their noses nearly brush in the dimly lit cabin. “Yeah, I could have what you think is a good life, but it would be shit without you in it.”

Clarke scoffs, but she doesn’t move away. She’s addicted to this, how he feels safe even when they’re whirling like a pair of hurricanes, destined to collide into each other and ruin everything in their path.

“Yeah, like your nightmares aren’t enough. You gotta have mine, too. What’s so good about living with me? Is it when I wake up in the middle of the night, soaked through, and you have to go all the way to laundry to get me fresh clothes? Is it my panic attacks and when you have to ditch your work and talk me down, because - “

She’s painfully aware of how he waits until he reaches a boiling point. Then he slides a hand into her hair, his other dropping on her waist. There’s something painfully raw and aching and honest between them right now and it brings tears to her eyes.

“No, Clarke. It’s when I come home and you know why I feel fucking wrecked without having done anything hard at all. It’s when we sit at that stupid table,” he nods towards it, a ghost of a smile, “and you make the world’s worst jokes. It’s you, and I don’t care. It’s you. And even if you never let me touch you for the rest of our lives, that would be enough.”

It’s like a punch to her gut, hearing him say it, and she’s thought about this. Come up with twenty different lines to assure him that this is wrong.

But now - 

Now she just wants to kiss him, tears clouding her vision and hands grasping at his shirt. Scars and all. So she asks, “Can I kiss you? Please, Bellamy, can I - “

And he laughs, smiles, nods like they aren’t completely insane already, haunted by ghosts and war and bloodshed. “God, yes, Clarke.”

It’s desperate and sloppy, her fervent hands roaming, his steady and anchoring her, the way they do when she can’t sleep at night and has to think about what makes her alive. It’s always him.

And it feels like these eons of tragedy break the dam open when he kisses her back, slow and tentative at first, sure by the end. His lips slide against hers and he pulls her in until she feels so whole that she might break wide open.

It’d be enough.

“You get me. I don’t care, you get _me,_ ” he whispers after, their skin sticking together, something bittersweet about it. They’re a fucking tragedy but he still gives her hope, in their small and warm cabin, nothing in the world but the two of them.

That night, they still have nightmares. Bellamy’s curls stick to his forehead, his skin sheen with sweat, and Clarke holds him, with her heart beating in sync with his, loud enough to mistake for war drums.

But then they come home again, to each other, and she tells him she loves him, keeps repeating it until he falls asleep.

And even with all the weight pressing at her chest, happiness doesn’t seem so impossible anymore.


	30. Florist and Tattoo Artist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exactly what it says in the title! For Julia! <3

“I don’t want those people in my neighborhood.”

Octavia stares her brother down and lifts her index finger. “First of all, it’s not your neighborhood. And second - _those people_? You want a tattoo, Bell!”

Bellamy Blake is twenty eight, fresh out of college with a Classics degree he now can’t use because his mother’s flower shop became his responsibility, and he’s pretty much done with everything.

Yeah, he does like flowers - it’s hard not to since the first thing he remembers saying is “orchids should never go with peonies” and the scent of flowers, deeply ingrained into his nostrils, since the age of six, didn’t even leave him in college.

(Even Roma, his junior year girlfriend, laughed as she said. “Damn, Bellamy, you smell like roses.”)

So now that he’s saddled with _Aurora’s_ \- he doesn’t need a tattoo artist down the street. Nope. This is a nice neighborhood. None of that millennial fuckery.

“It is our neighborhood and yes, I want a tattoo, but not a tattoo parlor. There are children here, O!”

His sister rolls her eyes, her boots slamming against the linoleum and rattling a couple of vases overflowing with sunflowers. “I see only one kid here and it’s you.”

It doesn’t help that his baby sister is friends with the pair of tattoo artists working in the _Grounders_ parlor. In fact, if the flirty exchanges are anything to go by, she might even be dating Lincoln Woods.

“Also, your crush on Clarke is ridiculous,” she adds before throwing her hair over her shoulder haughtily and skipping off towards her bike. Bellamy groans, even though no one can hear him, but the cactus on his desk is silently judging him.

As per usual, Clarke - the other tattoo artist - shows in his shop around noon. They have this thing going on where they eat lunch together and bicker. It all started when they were in another one of their moods and Lincoln just dumped Clarke’s lunch because - “If this is gonna take a while, you should at least eat.”

So now they eat together.

But Bellamy still doesn’t support her parlor.

“You’d change your mind if you just came over,” Clarke says in a sing-song voice as she bites into her turkey and cheese sandwich. Bits of bread get caught in her chin and Bellamy pointedly looks away as to not brush it off.

She’s - gorgeous, makes fun of him, her jokes are terrible and she once argued with him about The Odyssey. So yeah, pretty much a dream girl. But she’s a tattoo artist and Bellamy will not support that lifestyle, not when Octavia is dead set on getting a tattoo.

“Nope, never.”

“God, you’re such a dick, Blake.” 

He sticks his tongue at her and Clarke punches him playfully. He tells her about a ridiculous wedding order that has him painting sunflowers pink, for whatever reason the groom wants them to be, and she talks to him about her best friend visiting soon.

It’s all well until he actually has to go into Grounders one day because Clarke doesn’t show up for lunch. He doesn’t want to make it seem like he cares so he brings orchids as a gift. The place probably smells of weed, they could use it.

But when he enters the parlor, it’s - clean. Pristine, even. White walls adorned with paintings of flowers and dragons, something for everyone. The couches look incredibly comfortable and a faint scent of vanilla washes over Bellamy.

“Vanilla bun?”

He flinches and realizes that Lincoln is offering him a platter. 

“Uh - no?”

“They’re not poisoned.”

Bellamy narrows his eyes at the other man, who just laughs and rounds the front desk. “Clarke is in the back with a client.”

Suddenly, he feels clumsy and awkward. He shouldn’t have come. It’s not - they’ve never done this and she probably doesn’t need his meddling. But just as he’s about to turn around and get the hell out of there, Clarke appears.

She’s leaning on the doorway, the tasseled curtain chiming as if to announce her presence, and her gaze is all softness and humor, enveloped in a halo of wavy blonde hair.

Her arms are bare, too, and that’s when Bellamy sees them. The flowers.

There must be hundreds of them, intricate patterns, from orchids to daisies to roses to sorts that can only exist in imagination. There’s a sparrow circling around her wrist, pink, and a rose blooms on her neck.

“That’s gorgeous,” it slips, just escapes his mouth and Clarke’s smile widens in accord to Bellamy’s eyes. It is. It’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, the masterpiece painted across her body, and that’s when he sees her for the first time.

From the girl who stormed into his shop like a hurricane, asking why he’d trash talked her to Raven, the coffee shop owner, to the one who rolled her eyes when she lent him an ancient copy of The Iliad instead of accepting his thank you, to Clarke now - in her natural habitat, with her arms bare for the first time for as long as he’d known her.

A guy slips past her, squinting at Bellamy, and he can only imagine how ridiculous his face is. Clarke motions for him to follow her into the back and takes the orchids with a quiet thank you. 

“I told you, you just had to give me a chance,” she says when he’s taken a seat. The walls are covered with artistic photos of tattoos she’s probably done herself, and she sits on the chair, looking at him openly.

“If I’d known - “

“Yeah, but you didn’t because you had to be a smartass. Raven told me you thought we were dealing drugs. _Drugs_ , Bellamy. What the fuck?”

He feels like laughing and crying at the same time but the only thing that comes out is, “Can I get a tattoo? Right now?”

It catches her by surprise but she nods, makes room for him in the chair immediately. “Yeah, sure. I’m done for the day. What do you want?”

“I don’t know.”

“How about we start small? What are your favorite flowers?”

“Jade vine.”

Clarke frowns so he looks it up on his phone, shows the flowers to her. “My dad was from the Philippines, so.”

“And they’re rare,” she adds, with a mischievous glint in her eye. “Yeah, makes sense. It’s you, after all.”

It hurts less than he thought, getting it tattooed on his bicep, and Clarke’s hands are reassuring but steady. In the end, it doesn’t even feel like any time has passed because they talk. They really talk. She tells him about doodling on her skin when she got anxious, a coping mechanism that helped her feel better. He tells her about getting lost in his books when the world got too much.

Soon enough, the sky is a darker blue than the jade vine hanging off his arm. When they’re done and he’s looking at himself in the mirror, tracing the tattoo delicately with his finger, the world is quiet.

There’s just him and Clarke, miles of winding tattoos turning them into artwork, and Bellamy can’t help but to turn to her, smile, feeling the weight lift off his chest.

“Thank you.”

She ducks her head, a smile forming on her lips. “It’s nothing.”

“How much do I owe you?”

She raises her eyebrows like he can’t possibly be serious and shrugs it away, “Free of charge. Consider it a present for changing your ways.”

“Can I take you out to dinner, at least?”

For a second, they’re suspended in space and time. Clarke blinks at him, Bellamy wonders why he’s so fucking stupid and then everything snaps back as she throws her head back and laughs, says,

“Fucking finally.”

In the morning, she drinks coffee in his kitchen, in his shirt, and laughs when he burns the bacon. 

“You were too tempting,” he tells her, steals another kiss. Clarke just rolls her eyes but she’s sweet on him. And his _flowers_. 

“Which is obviously more important,” she shoots back when he tells her as much. Her feet are hitting the counter in tune to the song on the radio and the kitchen is full of sunshine. “You’re such a dork, Bellamy.”

But it finally feels like all is right with the world, with Clarke beaming like the sun in his kitchen, flowers everywhere they look. And suddenly, he doesn’t mind the tattoo parlor down the street. Not at all. 


	31. Single parent!Bellamy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I mean, exactly what it says in the title. Bellamy is a single parent and a Hot Mess TM, Clarke helps out, the kid's name is Julius.
> 
> Because [Carrie](http://carrieeve.tumblr.com) wanted Bellarke with kids. :D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ya know what, I really needed this fluff in my life today and none of you get the right to judge me.

Voicemail beep.

“Hi, Clarke. It is now 2am, Julius doesn’t want to fall asleep, I am covered in - “ rustle - “yeah, that’s poo alright. And I wanted to get drunk but then I realized I’m a father and I can’t do it.” Long-drawn sigh. “Anyways, I hope you’re asleep and have a good day. He seems to like shark documentary so we’ll see. Have a good night, Clarke.”

He’s a mess and he knows it. Honestly, he shouldn’t have expected life to give him a break just because he a girl he’d went on two dates said she was pregnant and he wanted this. They both wanted this, got nurseries for both of their apartments, decided to be good parents even if they weren’t a good couple.

But then Gina died and all that was left was tiny Julius left in his hands, eight months old and incapable of doing anything other than screaming and pooing.

“Come on, little guy, let’s get you some coral reef sharks, yeah?” Bellamy coos to the baby in his hands, wrapped in his favorite pink “I love my aunt” onesie Octavia got him the other day.

The kid is loved, he is.

But Bellamy is very close to just dropping dead one day. This is the second time he’s had to raise a child but Octavia was in her teens. Julius doesn’t know anything and he can only rely on Bellamy to show him that world might have been a fucked up place for his dad, but it won’t be for him.

He’s settled down once they’re twenty minutes into the documentary but when the doorbell rings, it’s like a fuse has been lit and Julius erupts into another round of full-throat screaming.

“What the - “

Bellamy is not gonna swear in front of the kid.

He is not.

And then he opens the door to see Clarke with a leather jacket over her pajamas, crazed look in her eyes and arms full of baby supplies. She doesn’t even spare Bellamy a second glance, goes straight for Julius.

“It’s okay, baby, Clarke is here. Come on, who’d want to hang out with your nerd dad, huh?” She wrinkles her nose, impossibly cute. “Yup, he smells like poo, too!”

So Bellamy starts laughing as she takes over, sings off-tune and glares at him when he cocks an eyebrow at her. “What? I don’t see you making your kid stop crying.”

“He prefers his Clarke best.”

She squares her shoulders, nose high, “Damn right he does.”

And this is why he couldn’t marry Gina when it came to that. He would’ve but the mother of his child, she knew. He was always going to be in love with Clarke, beaming at Julius now, golden hair like a halo around her head.

“I love you, you know that, right?” Bellamy asks, because he’s tired and Julius has fallen asleep and the world is finally quiet.

Clarke looks at him, lips slightly parted, and then just smiles back. “Yeah, Bell. Love you, too.”

They don’t do anything that night, just put Julius to sleep and stumble into shower. Later on, her hair tickles his nose and he breathes into the crook of her neck. But in the morning, she kisses him and it’s like the world has finally cut him a break.

“We’ll be good, the three of us,” he tells her and tastes morning and hope on her breath. “Thank you for everything, Clarke.”

_Thank you for coming to the hospital and arranging Gina’s funeral. Thank you for holding my hand. Thank you for not making me feel like an asshole who knew he should have done more. Thank you for sleepless nights and babysitting and -_

“Of course.”

Julius chooses that exact moment to start crying and both of them burst into laughter. 

This is just their life now.


	32. FWB + Enemies to Lovers + Fake Dating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [tvseriejunkie](http://tvseriejunkie.tumblr.com) said she'd like either friends with benefits or enemies to lovers or fake dating. So I said - why the hell not? and wrote all three in one!
> 
> So - exactly what it says on the tin! Behold, the oblivious dorks!

It starts because Clarke doesn’t know how to tell her mother she’s not dating anyone without Abby Griffin trying to set her up for her wedding with Marcus. To put it simply, it starts because she is ridiculous. Absolutely. Grown ass people should be able to tell their parents that they are happy and single, but not Clarke.

Oh no, not Clarke.

So she asks Bellamy, the guy she hates, to be her fake date for the wedding. The freckled, gorgeous, Adonis-like menace chokes on thin air in the bar they usually go to with their friends.

“Are you shitting me?”

“Nope.”

“Why me, then?” He’s confused, it’s obvious. The crease between his eyebrows might just stay there forever. Bellamy Blake, the perpetually worried. Clarke doesn’t even know why she hates him. It’s probably out of principle, like things usually are with them.

“Because I know how this ends, okay? You ask someone to fake date you, you fall in love, boom marriage and three kids.” Now she goes serious. “And I do _not_ want kids.”

Bellamy chokes on thin air again and really, she should’ve thought this through but she’s got five litres of beer in her blood and she can’t think straight. Besides, he’s always there when his “friends” need a favor. He’s the one she can count on.

“Because I hate you so there’s no chance of that happening.”

Bellamy lets out a theatrical sigh of relief, wipes away the nonexistent sweat on his brow. 

“Oh, good. I thought you might have fallen in love with me.”

 

*

So of course she goes home with him after the wedding. His hands are everywhere, have been for the past three hours, and by the time they’re scrambling for the keys to his apartment, Clarke is _burning the hell up_.

They’re sloppy and their teeth clash when Bellamy finally, finally pulls her in and kisses her. Her dress ends up with a torn zipper on the floor, his pants are somehow thrown out the window and the way he gives it to her - 

Damn. 

She is _so_ gone.

*

So they keep going, for a while. If Clarke has a shitty day, she brings vodka and fucks him on the couch. If Bellamy has a shitty day, they marathon history documentaries and he gets her off as much as he wants.

“You’re not getting anything out of this,” she tells him, brushing the stray curl out of his eyes. The world is hazy with his fingers tracing the seam of her underwear, everything about him soft once they’re alone.

(They can fight their way through the week, making their friends wonder whether this is The Fight, but once they’re alone - it’s easy. It’s soft and Clarke sometimes wonders about things she shouldn’t even think about.)

And Bellamy smiles at her, dopey, like he always does once they’re lazy and sated. “Oh, trust me, I’m getting plenty.”

It goes on until it turns into her staying over and Bellamy learning where she keeps the coffee in her kitchen counter. It turns into “Fuck, I’m not in the mood today, you mind?” and Clarke laughing as she rubs the tension out of his shoulders because - no, she doesn’t mind. It’s all good. All is good with him.

It goes on until she realizes that her favorite place in the world is Bellamy’s embrace, his breath warm on her neck, her cold feet between his calves.

It shocks the shit out of her and she wakes him up, sees him go all bleary eyed and panicked. “What’s wrong? Clarke, talk to me.”

“Nothing, I just - what are we doing, Bellamy?”

He frowns at her, manages to find his glasses on the night stand. He wears glasses when they’re alone. It’s a sight, how they slip down the bridge of his nose when he’s on top of her. Or, even worse, when he makes her breakfast and asks what she’s got planned. Just like that. Like he cares.

“I was hoping we are sleeping, but. What do you mean?”

“I mean - this,” she waves her hand vaguely, motioning toward how they’re completely clothed, sleeping next to each other. That’s what fucks her up. “Are we friends, are we fuck buddies, what are we? Are we - “

It’s hard, to let it out. It’s so hard it makes her want to cry with how much this matters to her. She can’t just ask because her heart will be ripped at the seams if he says _no_.

“Are we in love? Is that it? What is this, Bell?”

It takes him a second to gather his wits and then he’s smiling, like he did when they were sworn enemies and he still made sure she got home safe - pissed drunk, smiling like the hottest day in July, his hands sticking to her skin like he doesn’t intend to let go.

He just smiles and something very heavy rolls off Clarke’s chest.

“It might be.”

“Oh, good. I thought you might hate me.” 

It comes out weak and Bellamy starts laughing, pulls her into a hug, like he can’t get enough of her, kisses every inch of her skin - even the ticklish spot behind her knee - lets her know how much he cares.

And Clarke, in return, makes sure that he knows that she’s never hated him.

Not even a little bit.


	33. Hogwarts AU + Quidditch + FWB

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The lovely [Who_Needs_Reality](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Who_Needs_Reality) (her fics are awesome btw GO CHECK THEM OUT!) asked for Bellarke Hogwarts AU.
> 
> And I'm only human, so I added quidditch and (un)resolved sexual tension and friends with benefits.

“I will take your stupid fucking quidditch robes and burn them on a stake.”

“Careful, you don’t want to damage that crown of yours.”

“Asshole.”

“Princess.”

It ends with scoffs and snorts as the two team captains shake hands and by the blow of the whistle, set off into air. 

It’s always like this. Bellamy and Clarke might be seventeen now but ever since they set eyes on each other, it’s been nothing but fire. With time, it turned into a friendship, as long as quidditch wasn’t involved.

And when it got - the Slytherin seeker and team captain Clarke, and the Gryffindor chaser and team captain, Bellamy - would announce war with each other and made sure they don’t leave the pitch until someone won.

This time, it was Clarke who won, and suddenly everyone was on her. Even Murphy smiled, Emori rolling her eyes next to him and pulling Clarke in for a hug. She saw the snitch first, Raven could _suck it_.

(Even though they got drunk together like every second day of the week. NEWTs were a bitch.)

Clarke is in the middle of getting dressed after the shower, the locker room blissfully empty, her teammates long gone, when she hears a slow clap and turns around.

“Good job on the pitch today, Griffin.”

Of course it’s Blake. His hair is falling into his eyes, wet curls and water droplets sliding down his freckled cheeks. He always looks good, but there’s something special about seeing him after a match. It’s like a match has been lit behind his eyes and now even his smile burns bright, etches itself into her heart, makes her feel giddy and blissful.

She’s wearing just her underwear but he isn’t put off, just keeps on grinning. “Ever heard of privacy?”

“Yeah,” his smile gets even wider somehow, hands in the pockets of his jeans. He’s such a Muggleborn and it makes her heart swell with fondness. “I heard it was great, but I always was a black sheep. And it’s not like I haven’t seen more.”

In a second, he’s close enough for Clarke to see his gaze darkening, head ducked just so he can brush her lips teasingly.

This is what they do when the world isn’t looking:

Her fingers get tangled in his hair. His hands trace her body like he wants to map every single inch of her skin.

The way he kisses her tastes like victory and it doesn’t really matter who won, as long as she’s got her legs wrapped around his waist and he’s smiling into the crook of her neck.

She’ll be covering the marks on her chest for _weeks_ to come but it’s worth it, seeing him smile, all his walls down. When they first became friends, he was a fortress. Clarke would see him laugh with his friends, laughter like a true Gryffindor roar. She would see him with his firsties, affection and kindness.

But no one got this close.

“I’m sorry you guys lost,” she tells him after, sliding her feet into her boots. They are not going to mention this. They never do.

(”No one has to know what we do,” he whispered into the skin of her neck that first time, tensions high and frustration turning into something else entirely.

“Good.”)

Bellamy freezes, turns to face her slowly. She doesn’t know what she said, just knows that it was the wrong thing because his gaze has gone all soft and she doesn’t know how to handle this. The afterglow isn’t real world. Bellamy with the scars on his chest, just getting dressed, is.

“ _That’s_ new.”

“Can’t I be a decent person?”

He ducks his head to hide a smile. “Sure you can. But neither of us really are.”

“Call it a change of heart.”

Bellamy cocks an eyebrow at her. “Oh, really?”

It takes her a while, boots nearly all laced up, when she leans forward with her head in her hands. “I’m just - Aren’t you tired of hiding, Bellamy?”

And he takes a seat next to her, his Gryffindor quidditch captain badge pinned to his stupid sweater. Always with the stupid sweaters. He’s got half of Hogwarts lusting after him and he’s still such a fucking dork, keeping his wand behind his ear and listening to Muggle music on his walkman.

“I never thought you and I would be a couple,” he says, almost whispers, with how low and quiet his voice goes. He’s leaning on the wall next to her, hands in his pockets again. She knows all his tells. He knows hers. “We’re from two very different worlds.”

“I know. Your mom is a seamstress, mine is the Minister for Magic. You have a sister, I had a pet turtle. Your favorite band are The Clash, mine are the Weird Sisters. You’re a nerd who still collects Pokemon stickers, you’d rather die than betray your friends, you’ve got this huge fucking heart and you’re too brave for me to even - “

She hears him laugh and then he’s kissing her, like he’s never done before. It was usually bruising, the intensity of how he’d pin her to a wall in an empty classroom, trying to mask how much he’s missed her. And now it’s - sweet. Slow. Taking all the time in the world because now they have it.

And Clarke could cry with relief.

So when he laces their fingers together in front of the castle, hallways overflowing with people who could see them, Clarke nearly chickens out.

“Are you sure?”

Because she is. She is. She wants him, wants switching their ties accidentally and wants cuddling up in someone’s common room and wants to kiss him whenever she pleases, not just when it’s quaint.

Bellamy smiles at her. “Never been more sure of anything in my whole life. Let’s go shock the shit out of everyone.”

(Two minutes later, McGonagall makes Snape pay up with a holier-than-thou look in her eyes, Jasper passes out and Flitwick awards both their houses with ten points for “utilizing your brains at last”.)


	34. Tear In My Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Sydney](http://a-map-with-no-destination.tumblr.com/) wanted Bellarke + "I met you in the crowd at a concert & you sang my favourite song to me but I didn't get your name or number but like damn, can you do that again?" but she was open to "Oh you're my new roomie's bro" so let's do both! 
> 
> Basically - Bellarke falls in love at a twenty one pilots concert yaaay let's go!

There’s this feeling that comes with twenty one pilots concerts. Clarke can’t put her finger on it but they just make her feel good. They make her feel like she’s _more_ and at the end, she can reconcile all her ugly parts with all her beautiful parts - and she doesn’t feel like a shitty excuse for a human. 

So when Octavia has to cancel at the last minute because of a work situation, she decides to go alone. Because it’s twenty one pilots and she’ll be damned if she misses it.

At first, it’s really fucking scary. There’s all these people with their friends, humming with restless energy as they wait for the guys to show up. And then - when the music starts - the whole atmosphere changes.

She isn’t alone anymore. No, they are all together in this and there’s probably enough love in the stadium to stop wars.

A smile replaces her frown when they finish Car Radio and start singing Ride, but something really odd happens when the intro to Tear in my Heart starts playing.

There’s a guy that’s been standing next to her for a while, as if the two of them - both on their own - simply gravitated to each other. He’d sung along to previous songs but it wasn’t like this.

No - now he turns to her and, with a smile and dimpled cheeks peppered with stars, starts singing.

To  _Clarke_.

For the first few seconds, she doesn’t know what to do. He’s just smiling in a very nice kind of soft way, not threatening, not like some creep. Just like he wants to do this and hopes she’ll like it.

So by the time he gets to ‘my taste in music is your face’, pointing at her face, Clarke throws her head back in laughter and takes his hand, dances and sings along to the beat. The world feels alright, hyped with the euphoric sort of happy and the guy _is_ pretty. 

“I’m sorry, that was probably weird,” he tells her, out of breath, when the song ends. There’s a moment of quiet that catches Clarke with her cheeks red, shirt sweaty and happy, happy, happy.

“No, it was - “ she struggles to find the right words as he looks at her expectantly, her hand still in his - “ it was appropriate, actually.”

His surprised laugh makes her smile and so they stay like that, singing at each other like a pair of best friends, even hugging when slower songs start playing. It’s magical, it’s - 

Clarke doesn’t want the night to end. She doesn’t want it with a raw passion of trying to keep it going, cheering on with the rest of the audience so the band comes back to the stage, the guy going so far as to raise her on his shoulders. He muffles his laughter into her thigh when she screams “Please come back! I need to stay with this cute guy!” and his warm cheek scorches her skin.

It’s only a cruel trick of the universe that the crowd marching towards the exit an hour later separates them, disappointment as hard and as clear in the guy’s eyes as it feels in Clarke’s heart.

*

“I met someone.”

Octavia is half-passed out on the couch but she squints at Clarke. “What’s his name?”

“I didn’t get it.”

“Are you stupid?”

Clarke shoves at her, makes more room on the couch. “He sang Tear in my Heart at me and we held hands and - “ 

She ends with a squeal that prompts Octavia to press a hand to her forehead. “You sick or something?”

“No, but I might be in love.”

They joke about it for a lot longer than they should and Clarke can’t fall asleep because she keeps seeing the guy whenever she closes her eyelids. There’s still static humming in her ears because they’d been standing too close to a speaker, and she remembers him laughing when she told him that she didn’t want to come alone.

“Good thing you did, otherwise we wouldn’t have met.”

But now she doesn’t even know his name or his number and sleep pulls her in with a bittersweet thought - this kind of good can only exist for a moment.

 

*

“Bell’s coming over for dinner today.”

Clarke frowns at Octavia. “Your brother?”

She knows three things about Bellamy Blake: he’s a nerd (according to Octavia), he’s a mother hen (according to Octavia) and he tries really hard to be an asshole (according to Octavia _and_ Lincoln).

Somehow, Clarke’s never met him but she doesn’t really want to. Sure, from what she’s heard, he also practically single-handedly raised Octavia, but he doesn’t seem like a fun kind of person.

“Yeah, he was at the concert last night, too, so he’ll probably fangirl or some shit,” she clarifies, rolling her eyes as she checks the cupboards for chocolate. 

“He can’t be an asshole if he likes twenty one pilots, O.”

Octavia shoots her a glare. “There are assholes who like the band. Bell’s not one of them. I just said he actively _tries_ to be an asshole.”

They leave it at that, Clarke going to work and Octavia lounging in front of the TV because it’s her day off. By the time she has to get home, Clarke has forgotten all about Bellamy coming over for dinner so she nearly screams when she sees a stranger coming out of their bathroom just as she’s taking off her pants.

(So she takes off her pants as soon as she comes home, sue her.)

And then he steps into the dim yellow light of the hallway and he’s not a stranger anymore. No, Clarke knows those freckles.

“You,” he whispers, shock written clear in his feature. “What - “

Clarke shakes her head, but can’t shake her smile. “Wait, _you’re_ Bellamy?”

“The one and only.”

“With that name - sure.”

He rolls his eyes, fond. “And you’re Clarke.”

She nods, smiles. “What are the chances?”

And Bellamy ducks his head to hide a small smile, the kind that still has the intensity of a thousand suns shining in their shoebox apartment. It’s endearing and she steps closer, pants-less and all. 

It takes him just a second to catch up and then he’s sliding his hand into her hair, the other pulling her in closer by the skin of her waist. Their noses brush when he says, “I should have done this last night.”

“So do it now.”

They aren’t at the concert anymore, there’s no loud music, but it still feels like it when he licks into her mouth, wet and dirty and honest in a way that makes her heart flip and flip and never stop flipping.

Fuck, he’s so _pure_.  

They part only when Octavia clears her throat and says, “I’m sleeping over at Lincoln’s. I don’t want to know.”

Clarke shouts after her, “He’s the concert guy, Octavia!” and Bellamy laughs into her hair.

“You told her about me?”

“Like you didn’t.”

He sounds proud when he shoots back, “Damn right I did.”

And maybe the universe isn’t such an asshole after all.


	35. Wynonna Earp AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Wynonna Earp AU with Bellamy as Wynonna and Clarke as Doc Holliday.
> 
> (If you haven't seen the show, you shouldn't have a problem reading this - it's about Bellamy killing demons, trying to redeem himself and there's a shitton of guilt. So - the usual. :) )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd recommend listening to Delta Rae - Bottom of the River for that ~aesthetic feel. 
> 
> Yes, I ship Wynonna/Doc. Come at me!
> 
> Also, there's a lil of Octaven as Wayhaught in there, but not much - I'm sorry. :(

_It’s a long way to the bottom of the river, baby_ , Bellamy remembers his mother saying when he was just a child.

If you asked Octavia, his younger sister, all grit and fury barely contained in her bones (she would murder you on the spot if you called her fragile - _I am not fragile, I am a fucking phoenix_ , she’d say), what those words meant, she’d tell you - “It’s not that easy to drown.”

If you asked Bellamy, however, he’d tell you that it meant that fucking up your life is a string of interconnected events all defined by one shared characteristic - you don’t know how to be anything other than a monster and so you will drown. When you can’t swim but you run into the riptide, that’s what you do.

So here he is, standing at the bank of a river running red with blood and the best part is that he doesn’t know whether he’s even worthy of dying.

Not after what he’d done.

Not after Octavia dangling precariously off a stool, a noose tied around her neck, and a demon - a Revenant, his mother used to call them - grinning with his razor sharp teeth.

“What’s it going to be, Earp? Your grandpappy’s gun or your sister’s life?”

 

*

 

Like all stories, Bellamy Blake’s, too started with a curse.

He was six the first time his mother sat him down and told him that his great-great-grandfather was Wyatt Earp, but he wasn’t just a sheriff. No. He was the special kind of a sheriff.

“The kind that keeps the border between our world and the underworld closed.”

Bellamy blinked at his mother then, curses something he only knew from stories. “Like Hades?”

Aurora Earp shook her head, smiled her usual weary smile. Bellamy never could understand why his mother seemed to tire so easily, even if she hadn’t drawn the gun she kept in her boot at all times.

“No, baby, different. He didn’t just arrest and shoot the outlaws. He rid this world of demons, too.”

“Demons?”

His mother nodded. “And they come back every generation. But don’t you worry your pretty little head,” she always did like running her fingers through his curls, something left of a man whose name he didn’t know, a man who ran away as far as he could, “because I found a way to keep us safe.”

And so, with her marriage to John Blake and with tiny Octavia being born, Bellamy and Aurora were no longer Earps. No, they were Blakes.

But his mother still kept her gun in her boot and when the demons - the Revenants, the resurrected souls of the criminals his great-great-grandfather killed - broke into their homestead when Bellamy was twelve, not even the gun could save them.

His mother’s unconscious body lay on the floor when Bellamy picked up the gun, frowning to aim at the men dragging his stepfather away. His finger twitched once. Twice.

Then he took the shot.

It’s a long way to the bottom of the river, Aurora used to say.

And at twenty seven, Bellamy finally understands that it all began with that first step - when he missed and shot his stepfather instead.

 

The years that followed passed in a blur. The whole town of Purgatory, population: assholes, despised him. Even his mother did, couldn’t quite hide it, how it broke her to see that the curse didn’t end with them changing their last names and even worse - how her son couldn’t even shoot Wyatt Earp’s gun.

It was a string of juvies and getting arrested, Octavia sleeping on his mother’s shoulder when they’d come fetch him out of the jail, _tsk_ ing sounds of neighbors who’d say: “What a pity, he seemed like a sweet kid.”

Bellamy’s hatred grew until it just spilled over. Until he was twenty and fleeing in the middle of the night, a one way ticket to Athens, sneaking away from the curses and the men that haunted his dreams - the men whose skin cracked to reveal glowing red scars, the men who were not men at all.

For seven blessed years, he ran. Even mythology with its violence seemed kinder than the life he - as an Earp - had led and was supposed to lead.

And on the eve of his twenty seventh birthday, Athens was alive with light through the window of Bellamy’s room, Parthenon glistening in the moonlight as if the gods couldn’t give up on their people and instead, they pressed on relentlessly.

He didn’t know what not being given up on felt like but damn, it must’ve felt really good because even he could feel the warmth of Greece, blue sky and blue sea, history rich like dark soil and thick with blood and lust.

He was at peace until he wasn’t, until he heard Octavia’s panicked voice through the phone, “Mom is dead and Bellamy, it’s starting again.”

And just like that, Athens crumbled beneath his feet. Sun-kissed pillars, grown more dignified with old age, collapsed into nothing but dust and Bellamy was left clutching at the washed out blue sheets of the bed.

He’d known this would happen, of course he did. People like them – cursed people – they never got to be happy. No one calls people like Aurora and Bellamy Blake brave, not unless they’ve been destined for tragedy.

“Can you hold them off until I get here?”

Octavia was chewing her lower lip, he knew it, and there was a horrible crashing sound followed by a muffled cry. “Yeah. Just hurry.”

 

*

 

And so he’s standing next to Doc Holliday - his great-grandpappy’s trusted second-in-command, who is a blonde woman with ancient eyes, not a man at all (”But I _am_ a doctor,” she’d told him two nights ago, her feet on Octavia’s kitchen table, wearing nothing but Bellamy’s shirt and a smirk) - and Octavia is shooting glares at him.

“Don’t you dare give them the gun, Bellamy!” she shouts at him and Bellamy feels pride swelling in his stomach, how he’s left her and she still turned out to be much braver than he could ever be.

“What’s it going to be, huh?” Cage Wallace taunts him with eyes soaked in bloodlust. They want to get out of there, out of the magically bound space that keeps them contained to Purgatory and the outskirts of it.

Bellamy has no intention of letting that happen.

“Give them the gun,” Doc hisses. Well, Clarke. It’s Clarke, she told him. But when she’s like this, hat crooked on top of her hair, eyes sharp and steady - just like her hand when she’s ready to shoot - oh, she’s all Doc then.

“I can’t,” he hisses back, watching Octavia struggle to regain her balance, both hands tied behind her back.

She’s Clarke when her gaze turns softer. “Just trust me. We’ll all get out of here alive. All you gotta do is trust me. Can you do that, Bellamy Earp?”

It sounds different when she says it and he nods, puts the gun down on the ground, kicks it towards Cage Wallace. The world is just fire crackling in Clarke’s eyes, Octavia screaming: “No, you stupid shit! No!” and Cage Wallace grinning like he’s won.

A lot of things happen at once - Clarke draws her gun, shoots down three of the Revenants nearby. It gives Bellamy time to retrieve his gun as Cage scrambles for cover, kicks Octavia’s stool and sends her dangling in the air, sounds of choking and gunfire.

When Bellamy shoots her down, she falls into the dirt and Clarke yells, “Go get her!”, sends him scrambling forward, praying Octavia doesn’t get caught in the crossfire.

This is not her fault. This is not her fault. It couldn’t possibly be.

She spits out the sand when he helps her sit down, drags both of them behind a pair of barrels. Clarke’s shouting something, something that sounds like - “How do you like me now, fuckers?” and the siblings choke out a laugh.

“Fuck, I thought I was dead,” Octavia says while Bellamy cuts through the rope around her wrists. “Damn it, Bellamy. You shouldn’t have come at all.”

“And leave you?”

“It’s not like you know how to shoot the gun.”

Bellamy smirks, doesn’t know how he’s this embarrassingly brave now that he knows they could die tonight. But he knows that the gun fits in his palm differently now, better, like it was made for him. How he fired it two nights ago and saw lust rise in Clarke’s eyes (”You really are the Earp heir.” “Did you think I was lying?” It comes out as a purr when she drags him back to his truck, “Oh no, never, baby.”).

How, for the first time in his life, he shot something with the damned gun and didn’t miss.

“I helped you, didn’t I?”

“So go help Doc now. I can manage on my own.” She points at the shotgun lying not far from them, makes Bellamy want to laugh because he remembers her holding her father’s to his chest when he barged into the house like a madman, running back home because blood is thicker than water. Hell, blood is thicker than ichor.

“You really are like mom, through and through,” he presses a kiss to the top of her head and this time, Octavia doesn’t swat him away.

“Just go.”

“If we make it out of this alive, I’m gonna make you tell me about your research, ok?”

Somehow, it involved hooking up with a Black Badge officer by the name of Raven Reyes and recognizing Clarke as Doc Holliday the moment she set foot in Octavia’s kitchen.

And Octavia just grins, mischief lighting up her eyes. “If we make it out of this alive, then we’ll hunt them down together.”

He’s back into the maelstrom in the very next second, bullets grazing his arms as he fights to get back to Clarke. The Revenants keep coming in, bigger in numbers until it’s just the three of them against the world.

“Glad to see you’ve decided to join the party,” Clarke teases, shooting a demon down. Bellamy follows, finishes him with a bullet from his grandfather’s gun, makes the ground crack open. Hellfire engulfs the same demon who dragged his stepfather out of their home. Emerson.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Doc,” he shoots back, following with a swift punch to another demon’s jaw.

They work perfectly in sync, Clarke’s hand quick on her gun, even letting out a loud and terrible ‘Yeehaw!’ every now and then. And if it weren’t for the fact that he’s furious, that he’s angry, that he’s sad before anything else - Bellamy would’ve laughed.

“Might be a bad time to tell you but I’m running out of bullets.”

“Your timing really is shit, Clarke.”

“But my skills ain’t nothing less than perfect.” When her magazine is empty, she trades it for a sawed-off shotgun while Bellamy covers for her. He can almost taste the flames again. “Can this shoot right?”

“Yeah, it’s a shotgun.”

Clarke frowns for a second but then seems to manage it, because her back is pressed against Bellamy’s and he feels the recoil when she pulls the trigger and blasts away two of the Revenants.

And so it goes. The two of them working in tandem, aided by Octavia’s shots now and then. Bellamy cuts through the heap of them, some faces familiar from around the town, some because he’d seen them when he was twelve and this downward spiral started. But all of them have searing scars on their bodies when Bellamy points his great-grandpappy’s gun at them.

And they die all the same.

When no one but Wallace is left and both of them are bloody, both Clarke and Bellamy - a stain blossoming on her cheek like a morbid rose, his hands raw red, Bellamy sees him cower in fear.

He shouldn’t like it, he knows. Killing isn’t going to fix anything.

“Earp, please - we can make a deal, c’mon, your mom took one too and - “

“And look at what happened,” Bellamy finishes for him, feels Octavia’s hand on his shoulder. Maybe demons and men fear different things, but all of them are capable of being afraid.

“Do it, big brother.”

He’ll never be able to wash away the blood and it haunts him, Wallace’s piercing cries as he was dragged back to hell where he belongs. He wasn’t a man, but it was no less wrong.

Octavia sleeps in the back of the truck on their way back, a shotgun close enough to brush her fingertips, and Clarke is in the front seat, her fingers tangled in her hair and smearing blood across the golden strands.

“Pull over,” she orders him finally, a lilt in her voice that he’s taken to calling endearing. He didn’t know who she was when she approached him in Kane’s bar the other night, eyes flashing at the gun tucked in Bellamy’s boot.

But she is danger, when she helps him out of the truck, leads him down to the river.

“We called it the Ghost River, back in my day,” she explains, his hand still in his. She’s not looking at him. No, she’s looking at the river and Bellamy can’t take his eyes off her, how she looks so young and how she is ancient - at the same time.

“We call it that, too.”

Clarke nods. “They’d bring the wretched men to bathe here one last time before their execution.”

“Wyatt?”

Another nod, curt. Her hat lies forgotten on the dashboard. “See, he didn’t like killing people. I didn’t either. But we did it to keep our people safe.”

“The people in Purgatory aren’t my people. I don’t give a shit about what happens to them.”

It’s the first time she looks at him, really looks at him - seeing him and warning him, too. It makes something in Bellamy break open and he doesn’t know how to do this, how to stay when every nerve in his body is beginning him to run away.

“But you give a shit about your sister. You give a shit about the world. And I’m sorry to tell you this but they are your responsibility. There is no one else who can help them.”

His mother used to say - your sister, your responsibility. Bellamy tried to let go of that. He tried to let go of Purgatory, too.

But they wouldn’t let him leave.

So he falls to his knees in the grass, hands covered in blood and the river running. He can almost hear his mother whisper: “It’s a long way down, baby, so watch your step”, he can almost hear his stepfather laughing: “You’re not getting rid of us so easily, Bellamy”, almost taste a different kind of life.

But he can’t get it and so he buries his face into Clarke’s shirt, lets himself weep because she’s not going to mind. She knows how this goes. Told him that she’s spent a century trapped in a well, in the darkness. And it’s the one thing she’s afraid of.

(”A man who says he is not afraid is a liar, Bellamy.”)

So he admits now, “I’m scared shitless, Clarke, fuck - “

“I know.” Her breath is warm on his cheek and it startles him, how he can feel so cold inside and still know that there is warmth. “So come with me.”

He lets her pull him up, shuts down inside somehow, like he doesn’t care, and the water laps at his ankles when she drags him in. It’s cold, sure, but at least it’s not the hellfire that he deserves.

She is ancient and young and powerful and weak and everything when she kisses him and pushes him into the river.

The water is ice cold and it shocks him through and through, every second of his pathetic life running before his eyes like he thought it might.

Bellamy stares at Clarke in horror, his whole mind paralyzed in memories but his instincts kicking in as he scrambles for safety, thrashing like a fish washed ashore.

“They brought the wretched here to wash away their sins, too,” she says and smiles, offers him a hand when he stops struggling, lets the water absolve him. “You feel innocent yet?”

Bellamy shakes his head, crawling back to the bank, lying flat on his back in the grass. There’s just stars above him and they’re not telling him what to do. No one is.

The only thing he’s got is his grandpappy’s gun, his sister and this fucking town to protect.

And Clarke.

He’s got her, too, he thinks.

“Yeah, you’ve got me, too,” she says, a smile in her voice. When she leans above him, her hair falling into his face, she’s still covered in blood. Bellamy looks at his hands.

“They’re still bloody.”

“It’s a long way down to the bottom of the river, Bellamy. Give it time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into intersectional feminism, please check out [Loud and Alive](http://loudandaliveblog.com/)!


	36. Chainsmokers ft. Halsey - Closer AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exactly what it says on the tin! Ya girl is such trash for this song so when I got this prompt I had to write it!
> 
> Prompt: I have a fic request (sorry if the requests aren't open!) but it's late and I started thinking about a modern bellarke au based on closer by the chainsmokers and now I feel like dying and I need this fic.
> 
> Me too, friend, me too!

She’s like molten gold, sitting on the barstool and twirling her pink cocktail umbrella in a glass of whiskey.

To anyone but Bellamy, it’d seem weird. Who drinks something that burns its way down your throat and then plops a pink umbrella in, like it’s Pina fucking Colada?

Well, Clarke does.

And when he sees her back in the dress uncovering more than it covers, he wants to trace the constellation of the tiny freckles he’s mapped once. When he sees her hair and the outline of her face, looking pretty in a different but same way she did once - her ripped chucks on the dashboard of his truck, hair in a messy bun held tight by stray pencils that always fell out of her ripped pockets - looking pretty with diamonds on her ears but still the _same_.

The same.

“You broke my heart,” he tells her as an intro because he doesn’t know what to say, because his hands always held to his pockets and twisted there, until he’d card them through his hair in a way that’d make her smile fondly.

Clarke flinches, turns around and the smile - well, this smile is a fucking _beam_ and he’s been standing in the freezing cold water for such a long time.

She smells like lillies and forgotten dreams when she wraps her arms around him, buries her nose in the crook of his neck.

“I’ve missed you.”

 _Missed you, missed you_ , like the words are mocking him but he still smiles into her bare shoulder, lets her find a seat for him by the bar.

Lets her fill the silence with how her car broke down on her way to LA, on her way to achieve her dream. Year later, the newspapers were full of her smiles on the front pages - that one artist that came from a small town of Arkadia and set up installations that broke the people’s hearts.

Mended them back in a braver, stronger way, too.

Like she did for him once and now this pretty girl, this brilliant girl with her hair like gold and her heart like a wild beast begging to start a riot, now she’s smiling just for _him_ and Bellamy’s heart starts flipping.

Never stops.

“It was crazy, crazy how it all happened,” she tells him, eyes full of stars. “I was holding up two waitressing jobs and painting. Didn’t do much else. But I missed you.”

“I wish I could’ve come.”

But he couldn’t have done that, not with Octavia young and unfit to slum around with the two of them. Bellamy with his pretty words (or so Clarke told him) and Clarke with her art that couldn’t leave a single soul untouched (or so Bellamy told her). Both of them meant it. But in the end, she left and broke both of their hearts. It’s almost morbid how he’s able to forget all of that, Clarke in front of him now. 

He tells her about Octavia, how she’s in high school now, how she’s brave and shines brighter than their grey and bleak life. It’s all an explosion of colors now and that’s what he tells Clarke, in her pretty blue dress and diamonds shining in the yellow lights.

She laughs like the first day of spring. “Your words were always more, Bellamy. I wish you’d have come with me. Los Angeles would have treated you like you deserve to be treated.”

_Like an angel._

Like she used to tell him with her skin awash with heat and passion and blue and purple bruises blooming on her breasts, smiling dopily, both of them sated and curled around each other in Tucson heat, as Blink-182 played.

There was the world, with stars smiling at them from above.

And then there was the two of them. 

“That was four years ago, Clarke,” he reminds her, finally runs his fingers through his hair so he doesn’t reach for hers. They’re perilously close to his on the bar. The pink umbrella is stuck in her hair now, when she’d grinned at him and put it there, like he used to once. “I don’t even write anymore.”

“You’re lying.”

Bellamy chuckles. “Yeah, I’m lying.”

“Well, good. Someone like you - someone like you should keep writing, shouldn’t ever stop. You were half of my art, at least.” When he’s about to protest, she puts a finger to his lips. “Don’t pretend like it’s not true.”

He loved her when they were eighteen and sixteen and twenty and twenty two and now they are twenty six and she’s still got the power to make him see more, imagine better. 

There’s not a single bone in Bellamy’s body that’s willing to give her up and maybe she realizes that, Clarke with her newfound success and a penthouse in LA. 

(”You could come and stay with me,” she told him, calling him in the dead of night. Bellamy imagined her biting into her lower lip, full of anxiety and worry. They hadn’t spoken to each other in four long years. 

“Where, in LA?” He scoffed, unable to imagine himself living like that. Living like Clarke, with her parties and galas and gallery openings and all that art. She was sunlight burning through him but he’s always been a cloudy day.

“Yeah. Yeah.” She trails off, picks up. Her room must be dark, that’s when she was always at her bravest, like when she pulled him down to the mattress in the back of his truck, put his hips between hers and made him kiss her the very first time. “God, Bellamy, I miss you. Let’s try. Let’s try again.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, Clarke.” It feels like giving up, it feels like a small victory. “Yeah, let’s try.”)

And now he’s standing in front of her and everything feels off, but she feels right. 

“I should’ve taken you with me, Octavia, too,” she decides at last, fury and resolution building in her clear blue eyes. There’s a mole above her upper lip and Bellamy traces it with the pad of his thumb. Clarke melts, rises into ice again. “You could’ve kicked and screamed, I should have dragged you with me.”

“You did what was right.”

“But fuck, it wasn’t easy. Fuck, I was insane to leave you,” she whispers into the dead of night, her dress turning into starlight. Bellamy smiles for the first time tonight, realizes that she’s here now. _They_ are here now. 

That’s all that matters.

He finds her lip with ease, she finds the curve of his waist with fury, and maybe they are a little desperate when they paw at each other in the back seat of Bellamy’s Rover. Clarke laughs and he does, too, because he can’t afford it but he’s rented it for these few days.

They laugh until they’re not laughing anymore, her tongue curling into his mouth in a deep and dirty way that has every nerve in his body standing up alert.

She’s got a tattoo now, roses on her shoulder and he licks at it, tastes salt and pain and chocolate. Fuck, she still tastes the same and he’s gone, broken, left for dead, but he can’t find it in himself to care.

Because he’s got this, he’s got this now.

Clarke pulls him closer, unwinds the last four years with just three words. "Please stay, Bell.”

And Bellamy does. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into intersectional feminism, please check out [Loud and Alive](http://loudandaliveblog.com)! We accept submissions!


	37. The unofficial class couple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because my dear Jo believes her love life is weird but it's really not - and it makes for a good fic. ;)
> 
> AKA: Bellamy and Clarke are stubborn classmates, co-class presidents who do. NOT. like. each. other. AT. ALL.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized that, at some point in my life, I began equating socks with love so now we have this. I am sorry I am like this.

"Class Jeopardy?"

Jasper nods, a shit-eating grin splitting his face in half. Clarke should've expected this, honestly. It's Jasper and no matter the fact that seventeen year old boys are generally ridiculous - he's even more so.

I mean, just look at the damn goggles.

But she takes a deep breath because she's got this, she's Clarke fracking Griffin and she's been through worse.

"And does Bellamy know about this?"

Bellamy. Of course Bellamy wouldn't sanction this and Jasper knows it, hasn't even asked, judging by how red his cheeks go suddenly.

"We were hoping you'd talk him into it."

"Oh, Jas, you know I can't do anything without his say-so. He's my co-president. He'd probably sue me."

She's only half-joking. They've never really been friends, Clarke and Bellamy, but they haven't become enemies either - until she challenged him for the title of the class president.

And then they had to share the position, which. Ridiculous. The guy is a stuck up, boring, tedious, preposterous, absolutely no good asshole with a chip on his shoulder. He wouldn't know fun even if it bit him in the ass.

Which is why her plan is gonna work. There is no way in hell Bellamy will approve of something as foolish as pseudo Jeopardy while they could be watching documentaries on the last day before the Christmas break.

No way.

In.

Hell.

"Come on, Clarke, he'll just -"

"Who will do just what?"

And there he is. Somehow he'd managed to skulk over and it should make Clarke furious, especially because of their heated exchange last afternoon over the next semester's budget, but in this instance it just makes her happy and so she beams at him, knocks him back a bit.

"Jasper was wondering if we could play Jeopardy today and I knew that you would never approve of doing something so trivial so I -"

"Oh. That's cool, yeah."

Clarke's breath catches in her throat. Jasper's eyes widen. Bellamy just smiles.

"Excuse me?"

"We could all use a little fun, right? So go ahead, Jasper." With that, he even claps the other boy on the back and gives him a smile that shows he's been parenting his little sister for the last couple of years. "Good job, buddy."

And _that_ is why Clarke hates Bellamy Blake.

*

 

Ok, so she doesn't  _hate_ him. Not really. 

He can be nice when he wants to and the weather is good. Once he even got her a spare pair of the comfiest socks when hers got wet from the sludge and she definitely does  _not_  still sleep in them sometimes.

He is also very pretty, in a way guys shouldn't be. Girls, yes, Clarke's gotten used to girls she likes being pretty, but Bellamy is like - out of this world pretty? Like the aliens just dropped him on his planet and forgot to come get him so now he, the poor soul, has to sit between these mortals with his marble-cut cheekbones and curls that probably feel even softer than they look.

Ok, so she's thought about it. It'd be a shame not to. She is an artist. He is beautiful. It's logical.

But he also fights her on everything and if she says the decorations should be red and green this Christmas, he'll say red and golden,  _and_ he calls her a princess.

So obviously she can't have a crush on him.

Socks be damned.

 

*

 

"Question for 150 dollars - "

Bellamy raises a hand. "Just to make it clear, we are talking fictional dollars, right?"

Raven rolls her eyes. "Yes, Blake. Get on with the program already. So, the question is - who of our teachers is the oldest?"

It's easy to slip away for Clarke, sitting in the last desk with her feet on the chair and the sketchbook in her lap. They didn't make her participate, at least, and Bellamy claimed he was only going to do it to make sure there's no gambling.

Although he did bring her a glass with punch so that was surprisingly nice, even though he just thrust it in her hand and ran away.

Maybe that's why she's drawing him now. Shirt sleeves rolled up, freckles dotting even his arms, and veins popping in the backs of his hands like they always do when he's tired.

But he looks content, too, and Clarke smiles to herself. She gives him too much shit. He's actually a really good human.

"Okay, a question for 300 dollars - who is the unofficial class couple?"

It doesn't even take them a second to reply. No. Her traitorous class screams in unison -

"Bellarke!"

Clarke keeps her eyes on her sketchbook, doesn't dare look up and, God forbid, meet Bellamy's eyes. Nope. Her ears are burning but she's not gonna look up.

"Guys, don't be -"

"Oh come on, Mont," Miller protests, "even you've seen them at the field trip, getting all cozy."

So Clarke might have fallen asleep on Bellamy's shoulder and he might have draped an arm around her and that might have melted into the two of them getting all twisted together but surely that's no reason -

"He just doesn't want to make Mom and Dad angry."

Yep, Clarke's definitely not looking up any time soon.

 

*

 

"Clarke -"

She whirls around to face him, heart beating wildly, and starts, "Before you say anything - I had  _nothing_ to do with that. You know that they've always shipped us and I just don't know what to do to stop them. I'm uncomfortable, too."

For the first time, she really looks at Bellamy, and - 

He doesn't seem angry. Not really. If anything, he seems amused, if the mirth in his eyes is anything to go by.

"I wasn't gonna say that you put them up to it. I was going to apologize if I gave them a reason to think you and I were -" he wrinkles his nose, searching for right words and it's so cute, _so cute_ , and Clarke might just die, "an item."

"You? Why would _you_ give them a reason?"

He shrugs but it's half-assed at best. His ears are burning pink too and it's oddly festive, his face all golden underneath the fairy lights. They fought over them for an hour and he finally caved in. Clarke celebrated that victory with a whole chocolate cake.

"I figured they noticed."

Her heart skips a beat but she tamps it down. This is Bellamy. Sure, he's the one she'd call in an emergency but he's also the one who constantly calls her out on her shit and he definitely doesn't like  _like_ her.

When she doesn't speak, still trying to process what she thinks is insinuated, Bellamy frowns.

"I'm going to get over it so you don't have to worry. This is not some unsolicited love declaration, I just wanted to apologize if I made you uncomfortable. I promise it won't happen again."

"Are you in love with me?" she blurts out because she's got her hands full of bulbs and papier-mache in the empty classroom and it's getting dark outside and maybe she's known this for a very long time, wanted him to like her as much as she liked him since the first time she saw him tutoring underclassmen the night before they had AP Chem test. 

And Bellamy frowns even deeper, says, "You didn't know?"

It's all it takes for Clarke to drop all the shit she's been carrying and finally kiss him quiet, the kind of kiss that leaves him confused for a moment but when he kisses her back, it's worth it. Yeah, he means it, and she knows it by the smile that ruins it entirely.

They emerge from the classroom fifteen minutes later, disheveled and blushing, fingers laced together, only to see Raven and Jasper grinning at them in the hallway, with Monty taking pics.

"What is this? A welcome committee?"

"Damn right!" Raven straightens up, her brace clinking as she gets a bundle of fireworks seemingly out of nowhere. "And it's  _welcome to your senses, dipshits_ committee."

Clarke hears Bellamy let out a breath and then they both burst out laughing, falling over each other and then to the floor.

This time she doesn't ignore how touching him feels both steady and exhilarating, and this time - when Clarke smiles at him - Bellamy smiles back.

Oh she's gonna have a very merry Christmas after all.

 


	38. Bellarke holding hands at the end of the world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exactly what it says on the tin :)

It’s funny but he’s never noticed the sky before. Not until it turns blood red, seeping into orange, black smoke trailing like an ugly rip that shows what this planet’s become.

He’s never noticed how it used to be blue, not until Clarke leans her head on his shoulder and lets out a sigh. “It doesn’t look right. It looks so-- _angry_.”

There is a wrinkle in her nose as she speaks, something Bellamy would call cute once upon a time but now it's just tragic because she turned eighteen two weeks ago and now the Earth is dying. 

“Yeah, it does.” 

Because what is he supposed to say - shit, we’ve lived in the sky for so long but I’ve never actually thought to look up once we landed on Earth and now I want to smash my head against the walls - 

 _stupid stupid stupid_  

They’re gonna make it out of this one, Bellamy’s pretty sure. Nothing has managed to kill them so far and after everything they’ve done, they’d be lucky to get away.

No, they’re gonna survive this too and it doesn’t give him hope, not like it should. It just makes him feel tired, small, like he’d be happy to just curl up, and not take care of a hundred people for a few years.

He’s staring at the sky, a kid somewhere close by shouting “It’s red, the sky is red!” with actual enthusiasm in his voice, when he feels Clarke’s hand slip into his.

“Are you scared?” she asks, freezing cold fingers and her face peering out of two vests and a scarf. If they were all gonna survive in here, the heating can’t be turned up, Raven explained. Then she shoved a coat at him and called it a friendship.

It’s as good as anything, Bellamy figures.

But no, he’s not _scared_. “I’m just annoyed.”

Clarke scoffs, glimmer in her eyes and there’s that blue he should’ve thought to look at but never did. The sky used to be like that every day and he never looked up. It sounds like something straight out of a song, a metaphor for learning to do better the next time around but it feels like he’s been given one too many chances.

“Yeah, you would be. Bellamy Blake, annoyed that he didn’t get to sacrifice himself or something equally as noble or stupid.”

“That’s how I feel.”

“You don’t _know_ how you feel,” she shoots back, dropping his hand to step up on the tips of her toes, her nose nearly brushing his. Now she’s angry and it just makes him laugh, how persistent she is. “When’s it gonna be enough, huh? When are you actually going to get that you’re just _a person_ , you’re not all good or all bad, you’re just a person. You’re trying to do good, sure, yeah, but Bell - we don’t get to be that. We don’t get to be good people. What, are we going to make flower crowns instead of making calls to save our people? Do you seriously think that was ever an option?”

In the last six months that they’ve been trying to save the people (if they can’t save the world) they’ve barely had time to talk but Bellamy’s noticed - of course he has - how much Clarke’s changed. How more at ease she seems, sure of herself, knowing that her back isn’t big enough for all the kill marks but seemingly not having a problem with it.

He wishes he could do the same but all the horrible things he’s done just come back to haunt him in the end and he still can’t stop seeing Gina whenever he closes his eyes, can’t stop imagining what it must’ve been like for Octavia to see Lincoln, just can’t stop torturing himself. He’s escaped actual torture but he’s trying to make up for it, one thought at a time.

“I should’ve been out there” is all he says in the end, Clarke huffing and panting in front of him, biting into her lower lip to wait him out. And then she rolls her eyes, a moment of her resolve cracking before she slips back into her place next to him. 

The hallway is full of people by now. Everyone’s come to watch the end of the world. Again.

“If you think I’m going to try to give you forgiveness again, you’re wrong. You don’t need it anymore.”

“So you don’t need it either?”

This is how they are: she’ll come into his room late at night when she can’t sleep and he’ll pretend like he doesn’t hear her calling out the names of the people she’s loved (one night she dreams of Wells and wakes up crying, lets Bellamy help her pick up all the pieces she’s lost along the way and remember the good things). Bellamy will jab at her and then he’ll apologize, he’ll sneak into her bed just before the dawn and she’ll start talking, won’t stop until he’s had at least half an hour of shut-eye. 

This time, she shakes her head. “No. And you don’t, either. So just get your head straight and let’s do this. Let’s watch the world end and let’s start again in the morning.”

She makes it sound so easy and Bellamy wishes he could believe it really is. It’s not. But he nods all the same, takes a hold of her hand and laces their fingers together. The trees start burning on the other side of the glass. 

Clarke’s cheek is soft against his forehand when she brings it up for a nuzzle and he can’t help himself, wraps an arm around her waist even though she should probably be angry with her for calling him out.

But she’s also his best friend and he’d rip his heart out of his chest if it meant Clarke being safe and happy, so. It’s not like he can help himself. And the world _is_ ending, after all.

Two hours later there’s nothing but green smoke where air should be and the people have gone back to their rooms, nothing more left to see but stumps where flowers have once been.

That’s when he’ll kiss her, slide a hand into her choppy locks and hold her close until they’re both breathless and laughing.

“No forgiveness, huh?”

Clarke’s lips are red and her eyes are burning. The world’s end’s got nothing on her. “No. Not anymore. Now we fight.”

And Bellamy can live with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I'm kinda done with the giving forgiveness shtick.


	39. Bellamy Blake + the subway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short drabble about Bellamy reading on the subway.
> 
>  
> 
> _It's really funny how words have a flavor if you keep them in your mouth long enough._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw this [photo](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/48/88/9b/48889bd3ca954673cb67871ff9592c56.jpg) and in my mind, it instantly connected to Bellamy so here you have it. Bellamy Blake reading on the subway and experiencing new words.

Bellamy Blake reads on the subway.  
  
It's not a particularly well known thing or a thing he's keen on sharing, but every Monday he picks up a copy of the newspaper left on the doorstep of the kiosk in his neighborhood and peruses it for the rest of the week.  
  
It's usually an old copy; two or three weeks old with yellowing pages and more often than not, smudged print that is at times rendered illegible.  
  
It's really funny how words have a flavor if you keep them in your mouth long enough.  
  
Monday, it's _effervescent_ sneaked between two lines about an art exhibit in Brooklyn. Effervescent used in a way that shows mocking; the paintings are all muted grey, barely recognizable silhouettes and yet, the author chooses effervescent to describe it. Effervescent means _disgusting_ here, Bellamy knows it.  
  
The woman peeking above his shoulder may not, though.  
  
Tuesday, it's _simplify_. A nice, practical word that is all Wall Street, hustle and grind. Bellamy takes _simplify_ to the last carriage so no one can see it echoing against his molars, sticking to the roof of his mouth. Simplify. Good word for efficient people.  
  
Wednesday, and he is repeating _dubious_ over and over again. The paper's in a real bad shape; it's been raining for days and there's an ink smudge where an ad once was. Dubious. How _dubious_ , the stretch of the pavement curving into the alley behind his mother's diner.  
  
If Bellamy Blake truly made a wish, he would make dubious creatures appear there.  
  
Thursday and the word is _windfall_ , shoved into a coat pocket with Octavia's hand in his. She got suspended in school and is carrying a bruise on her cheek like a trophy. The people on the subway stare and Octavia Blake grins. _Windfall_ remains in his coat pocket and Bellamy decides he doesn't like the word very much. He doesn't like it at all.  
  
Friday, it's _literate_. His teachers tell him he is very literate sometimes and it feels like a second place award. You might stick out like a sore thumb in this private school but you are very _literate_. Victor Hugo was very literate, too. Literate is for writers, for parchment, for the heady smell of dusty rooms and academia. Is that all there is?  
  
It is Saturday and Bellamy pronounces _collectivize_ very clearly. Spine ramrod straight, no vowel slurred. _Collectivize efforts_ , like one cannot go without the other. There is no one in the carriage except for him and Bellamy tries again. Collectivize.  
  
Sunday is _electric_ but not for fault lines. Or, at least, not for any fault lines the author may know. No, _electric_ like _electric blue_ (the color of the nail polish his mother sometimes likes wearing), like _electric smile_ (the smile Octavia shoots him whenever someone says no, and she decides yes), like _electric_ in his hands and in his mind and wherever he was told there shouldn't be.  
  
_Electric_ like this train carriage, like Tesla, like the things he bears resemblance to. Sticking to solitary corners, pronouncing their words, creating their strange magic.  
  
On Sunday, Bellamy rides the train as far as it will take him and he does not have very much at all. He only has his words.  
  
On Sunday, they are enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading and if you liked it, **kudos & comments** are a great way of showing that. I'm a happy little fic writer whenever I read that you liked what I wrote so, please, make my day. :D
> 
> I'm also on [tumblr](http://marauders-groupie.tumblr.com) and always here for headcanons, prompts or just chatting. Come join me in my trash can!


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